n> 


UC-NRLF 


$B    MDb    75b 


PJ 

3041 

W3 

1896 

MAIN 


[  * 

\HE  SEMITIC  NEGATIVE 


WITH   SPKCIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THK  NEGATIVE 
IN    BEBBEW 


Bl 

l>KAN    A.  WALKEB 

,    N .    \  . 


CHICAGO 

TLbc  XTlnirersits  of  Cbicago  press 


THE  SEMITIC  NEGATIVE 


WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THE  NEGATIVE 
IN  HEBREW 


BY 

DEAN  A.  WALKER 

WELLS  COLLEGE,   XtJRORA,  N.  Y. 


CHICAGO 

ZTbe  Tlintverstts  of  Chicago  press 

1896 


«  '<i    DISSERiTJ'ftlQN'    PRESENTED    TO    THE    FACULTY    OF    THE 
\'frnkpV'i?E\&tytfOOLpF''&RTS   AND    LITERATURE   OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 
OF    CHICAGO,    MAY    5,    1895,    IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE 
DEGREE    OF    DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 


EXCHANGE 


[Reprinted  from  The  American  Journal  op  Semitic  Languages  and 
Literatures,  Vol.  XIL,  Nos.  3  and  4.    Chicago,  111.] 


V 


fiS 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


literature.       --------  5 

Introduction.         ---....  q 

On  the  Negative  in  General.            -----  7 

Table  of  Negatives.         ---...  \q 

The  Negative  of  Pure  Dissent.                    -            -            -            -  11 

The  Negative  of  Transference.              ....  \i 

The  Semitic  Concept  of  Non-entity.            -            -            -            -  31 


I 


THE    SEMITIC    NEGATIVE    WITH    SPECIAL    REFER- 
ENCE  TO   THE   NEGATIVE   IN   HEBREW. 

By  Professor  Dean  A.  Walker,  A.M.,  B.D.,  Ph.D., 

Wells  College,  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


LITERATURE. 

The  text  used  in  the  enumeration  and  citation  of  negative 
forms  and  constructions  in  the  Hebrew  and  Aramaic  of  the  Old 
iment  is  that  of  Mj/rr  Levi  L<ffcris,  John  Wiley  and  Sons, 
New  York,  1892.  On  doubtful  prints  comparison  has  been  made, 
where  possible,  with  the  Baer  and  Delitzsch  text,  but  it  seemed 
best  (o  base  the  work  on  a  text  already  completed  for  the  entire 
Old  Testament.  The  quotations  in  Arabic  are  from  the  Coram' 
T'.rlus  .\nihirns,  editit  Gustavus  Fluegel,  Lipsiae,  1881.  In 
addition  the  following  books  have  been  consulted  constantly: 

Gesenius.  //</•/•«  //•  uml  KmgUtk  Leoeioom  of  tlie  Old  Testament,  new 
edition,  by  Francis  Brown,  with  the  cooperation  of  S.  R.  Driver  and  C. 
A.  Briggs.    Boston,  1891,  %qq. 

Gesenius,  Hebrew  and  English  Lexicon  of  the  Old  Testament,  edited 
by  Edward  Robinson.    3d  ed.    Boston,  1849. 

Gesenius,  Handwnrterbuch.     8th  ed.     Leipzig,  1878. 

Gesenius-Mitchell,  Hebrew  Grammar,  1893. 

Gesenius-Kautzsch,  Hebraische  Grammatik.    22d  ed.    Leipzig,  1878. 

Gesenius-Rodiger,  Hebrew  Grammar.  14th  ed.  Trans,  by  Conant. 
New  York.  I  sir,. 

Ewald,  Hebrew  Grammar.    London,  1836. 

Ewald,  Lehrbnch  der  hebraischen  Sprache.    6th  ed.     1855. 

Bottcher,  Ausfilhrliches  Lehrbuch  der  hebraischen  Sprache.  Leip- 
zig. 1866. 

Green,  Hebrew  Grammar. 

Stade,  Hebraische  Grammatik.    Leipzig,  1879. 

Kalisch,  Hebrew  Grammar. 

Sofaroeder,  Linguae  Hebraeae. 

Schroeder,  Die  Phdnizische  Sprache.     Halle,  1869. 

Stade,  Erneute  Finding  <l<s  zwischen  dem  Phonizischen  and  Hebra- 
ischeo  bestehenden  Wrwandtschaftsgrades,  Morgenldndische  For- 
sriiungen.     Leipzig,  1875. 

5 


6  The  Semitic  Negative 

Noldeke,  Mand&ische  Grammatik.    Halle,  1875. 

Wortabet,  Arabic-English  Dictionary.    Cairo,  1888. 

Wright,  Arabic  Grammar.    London,  1859. 

Wright,  Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Semitic  Languages.  Cam- 
bridge (Eng.),  1890. 

Ewald,  Grammatica  Critica  Linguae  Arabicae.    Leipzig,  1831. 

Lansing,  An  Arabic  Manual.    2d  ed.    New  York,  1891. 

Socin,  Arabic  Grammar.    Leipzig,  1885. 

Zimmern,  Babylonische  Busspsalmen.     Leipzig,  1885. 

Palmer,  The  Qur'dn.  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  Vols.  VI.  and  IX. 
Oxford,  1880. 

Sale,  The  Koran.    London,  1850. 

Torrey,  Commercial- Theological  Terms  in  the  Qur'dn.  Leyden,  1892. 

Delitzsch,  Assyrisches  Worterbuch.    Leipzig,  1887. 

Delitzsch,  Assyrian  Grammar.    New  York,  1889. 

Dillmann,  Grammatik  der  Athiopischen  Sprache.     Leipzig,  1857. 

Noldeke,  Syriac  Grammar. 

Wilson,  Syriac  Grammar. 

McCurdy,  Aryo-Semitic  Speech,  1881. 

Delitzsch,  Studien  ilber  Indogermanisch-Semitische  Wurzelverwandt- 
schaft.    Leipzig,  1873. 

Lindsay,  The  Latin  Language.    Oxford,  1894. 

Whitney,  Sanskrit  Grammar.    2d  ed.    Leipzig,  1889. 

Lanman,  Sanskrit  Reader.    Boston,  1884. 

F.  Max  Miiller,  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language.  2d  series 
London,  1864. 

Strong,  Logeman  and  Wheeler,  The  History  of  Language.  London, 
1891. 

Halevy,  Melanges  d'e'pigraphie.    Paris,  1874. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The  purpose  of  this  article  is 

a.  To  present  in  comparative  tables  all  the  forms  of  negative 
particles  or  words  used  as  such  in  the  Semitic  languages. 

b.  To  classify  these  forms  according  to  origin  in  (1)  form, 
(2)  fundamental  idea,  (3)  syntactical  usage. 

c.  To  show  the  relation  of  different  particles  to  each  other  in 
the  same  language  and  in  different  languages. 

d.  To  trace  the  development  and  composition  of  certain  nega- 
tives from  more  primitive  forms  and  ideas. 

e.  To  discuss  some  previous  views  as  to  origin  and  composi- 
tion and  offer  some  new  explanations  of  forms. 


The  Semitic  Negative  7 

I. 

OF  THE  NEGATIVE  IN  GENERAL. 

Forms  for  the  expression  of  the  negative  idea  are  found  in 
every  language.  There  is  probably  no  negative  idea  that  could 
not  be  expressed  by  some  affirmative  but  circumlocutory  formula ; 
but  the  negative  particle  serves  the  purpose  both  of  convenience 
and  force,  and  in  some  forms  is  as  old  as  language  itself.  It  is, 
in  fact,  a  necessity,  and  as  language  grows,  the  primitive  negative 
differentiates  or  new  forms  are  found  to  express  new  and  different 
shades  or  degrees  of  force  in  the  negative  idea.  Tracing  this 
development  historically  we  find  its  first  expression  in  gesture, 
in  which  form  it  is  found  even  before  language  begins,  as  may 
be  noted  in  the  development  of  the  individual  human  being,  is 
seen  in  the  animal,  and  may  be  inferred  for  the  human  race  if  the 
theory  of  evolution  be  accepted.  The  kicking  and  balking  of  a 
horse,  the  growl  of  the  dog  when  you  approach  to  take  from  him 
his  mutton-bone  are  emphatic  expressions  of  dissent.  The  first 
sture  pure  and  simple,  like  the  shrug  of  the  shoulder  or  the 
shake  of  the  head  in  man.  The  growl  of  the  dog  might  be  called 
a  vocal  gesture,  and  is  a  second  stage  in  the  development  of 
negative  expression,  a  step  toward  a  vocabulary  which  man  in 
articulate  language  has  carried  to  completion.* 

In  the  mere  animal,  the  negative  is  an  expression  of  emotional 
dissent,  in  man  it  may  be  emotional  or  intellectual.  As  emo- 
tional, both  gesture  and  voice  by  modifications  and  combinations, 
the  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  the  toss  or  shake  of  the  head,  the 
facial  expression,  the  inflexion  of  the  voice,  may  add  to  the  idea 
of  dissent  the  element  of  scorn,  contempt,  disgust  or  indignation. 
As  intellectual,  the  idea  of  negation  by  use  of  a  differentiated 
vocabulary  may  be  modified  to  express  relations  of  time  as  con- 
tinuous, previous  or  subsequent  (as  in  never,  not  yet,  no  longer, 
which  are  expressed  in  some  languages  by  single  primitive 
words),  or  of  subordination,  condition,  contingency,  etc.  In 
man,  therefore,  we  have  the  three  steps  in  the  expression  of 
dissent  or  negation,  the  gesture,  the  natural  impulse  of  the  vocal 

*  On  the  chronological  order  of  development  of  the  affirmative  and  negative  sentence, 
•eo  The  HUtory  of  Language,  by  H.  A.  Strong,  W.  S.  Logeman  and  B.  I.  Wheeler,  p.  102. 


8  The  Semitic  Negative 

organs,  and  the  intellectual  choice  of  words  in  a  more  or  less 
extended  vocabulary.  In  this  vocabulary  of  the  negative,  we  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  in  every  language,  at  least  in  every  group 
of  related  languages,  there  will  be  found  at  least  one  negative 
particle  originating  in  this  primitive  natural  impulse  of  the  vocal 
organs  expressing  itself  in  what  we  have  called  the  vocal  gesture 
of  dissent.  The  remaining  particles  have  originated  in  ideas 
more  or  less  closely  associated  with  that  of  negation,  or  even  from 
ideas  originally  quite  unrelated.  In  accordance  with  this  view 
we  may  classify  the  vocabulary  of  the  negative  under  four  heads: 

a.  Negative  of  pure  dissent. 

b.  "  by  association  of  ideas. 

c.  "  "    transference  of  idea. 

d.  "  "    suggestion  or  attenuation. 

The  fuller  explanation  of  these  terms  will  appear  in  the 
classification  of  the  Semitic  negatives,  but  it  is  in  order  here  to 
discuss  the  meaning  and  appropriateness  of  the  first  designation, 
the  "negative  of  pure  dissent." 

The  negative  of  pure  dissent  is  the  particle  resulting  from  the 
vocal  gesture  of  dissent.  It  might  be  expected  that  this  particle, 
originating  in  the  primitive  natural  impulse  of  the  vocal  organs, 
would  be  the  same  for  all  men,  and  be  found  common  to  all 
languages,  but  such  is  not  the  fact.  We  do  find,  however,  in  a 
particular  group  of  languages  a  common  negative  stem,  which  by 
its  appearance  in  all  the  members  of  the  group,  is  shown  to  be 
the  primitive  negative  for  that  family.  Such  a  negative  is  found 
for  the  Indo-European  family  in  the  negative  stem  n,  and  in  the 
Semitic  family  in  the  stem  I,  which  appears  in  every  member  of 
the  group.  There  may  or  may  not  be  a  connection  between  the 
two  families  and  a  significance  in  the  fact  that  the  negative  in 
each  is  a  liquid,*  but  the  question  why  the  Indo-European  chose 
n  and  the  Semitic  chose  I  belongs  back  of  philology  to  the  realm 
of  psychology,  along  with  the  question  why  among  some  peoples 
the  common  gesture  of  dissent  is  a  sidewise  shake  of  the  head, 
while  among  others  it  is  the  backward  toss.  The  Englishman 
and  the   Arab   are  agreed  in  expressing  assent  by   a  forward 

*  For  the  exchange  of  yodh  for  lam  in  Western  Aramaic  and  Syriac,  and  for  mm  and 
lam  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud  and  Mandaic  as  preformatives  of  the  imperfect,  see 
Wright's  Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Semitic  Languages,  p.  183. 


The  Semitic  Negative  9 

inclination  of  the  head,  and  are  agreed,  too,  that  dissent  is  the 
opposite  of  assent,  but  the  Englishman,  regarding  the  gesture  of 
assent  as  an  up-and-down  motion,  finds  the  opposite  in  a  right- 
and-left  motion;  while  the  Arab,  regarding  the  affirmative  as  a 
forward  and  downward  nod,  finds  its  opposite  in  a  backward  and 
upward  toss  of  the  head.  Can  psychology  explain  this?  Is  it 
perhaps  that  in  the  Englishman's  dissent  there  is  more  of  deliber- 
ation, more  of  the  intellectual,  while  in  the  Arab's  dissent  the 
emotional  prevails,  and  the  backward  toss  of  the  head  expresses 
primarily  that  the  offer  or  the  proposition  offends  his  pride  or  is 
beneath  his  notice?  For  the  Arab,  too,  has  a  sidewise  shake  of 
the  head,  which  is  also  intellectual,  but  with  him  expresses,  not 
dissent,  but  doubt:  "I  do  not  understand  the  question,  please 
repeat."  This  distinction,  however,  does  not  follow  strictly  the 
ethnic  or  linguistic  lines  of  separation.  The  Greeks,  perhaps 
through  contact  with  Orientals,  have  adopted  their  gesture  of 
dissent,  as  indicated  in  the  words  Karavvm  and  uvuvvw,  while  the 
Armenians,  belonging  to  the  same  family,  though  oriental  in  all 
their  surroundings,  have  yet  preserved  the  sidewise  shake  of  the 
head.  I  am  told  by  an  Armenian  friend,  however,  that  among 
the  Armenians  also,  the  toss  of  the  head  as  a  negative  gesture  is 
assumed  as  a  matter  of  fashion  or  coquetry  for  a  short  period  by 
young  brides  and  by  girls  of  a  marriageable  age. 

II. 

In  the  following  table  a  view  is  presented  of  the  Semitic  nega- 
tives arranged  according  to  roots  and  in  doubtful  cases  according 
to  probable  etymological  relationship.  The  table  does  not  claim 
to  be  complete,  for  some  of  the  other  languages  if  read  with  as 
broad  an  interpretation  of  the  term  negative  might  yield  as  large 
a  list  as  the  Hebrew;  while  in  the  Hebrew  list  are  some  whose 
claim  to  be  called  negatives  might  be  disputed,  such  as  the  DS 
and  IT-  ,  though  their  cognates  in  the  Arabic  cannot  be  disputed 
as  negatives.  Especially  doubtful  as  to  etymological  relationship 
are  the  6  and  a- a  of  the  Assyrian  and  an,  ak,  anbi  and 
an  be  of  the  Ethiopic,  while  the  proper  position,  in  the  table,  of 
Assyrian  ul  and  Ethiopic  albo  is  not  certain 


10  The  Semitic  Negative 

Table  A. — Comparative  Table  of  Semitic  Negatives. 


Hebeew 

Arabic 

Assyrian 

Syriao 

Bibl.  Aram. 

Ethiopic 

Phcenician 

irtj,  ab 

5 

la,  la-a 

(=la) 

oi,  y 

ab 

T 

aba 

(?) 

J4-J 

lassu 

rrb 

(ba)  ba 

(?)ul 

b* 

ba 

(«or")+b?lb 

a-a(?),e(?) 

Talmudic 

A.— 

Punic 
in  Plautus 

en,  yn 

b? 

J* 

balu(m) 

bra,  ba 

*? 

JS 

ba-la 

^nba 

£i 

DTB 

&?? 

•    T 

1? 

"? 

rra 

u 

DK 

■jK,  Dtt 

#ib,  6 

2 

J^i 

^  (?) 

The  Semitic  Negative  11 

Classifying  the  negatives  according  to  the  root  ideas,  we  have 
the  following  table,  illustrated  most  fully  in  the  Hebrew.  Where 
it  is  desired  to  represent  a  root  that  appears  in  different  forms  in 
several  languages,  we  use  English  letters,  and  so  also  in  treating 
of  vowel  sounds  common  to  several  forms: 

Table  B. — Psychological  Distribution  of  Negatives. 

a)  Negative  of  pure  dissent: 

1.  Indo-European — n. 

2.  Semitic  —  I. 

b)  Negative  by  association: 

1.  Diminution  or  decay,  bs  from  stem  nb2  to  ivaste  away. 

2.  Cutting  off,  D^O- 

3.  Cessation,  CBfct* 

4.  Removal,  fib^T  from  root  b^T  to  remove. 

*  °  i 

5.  Change,  y&  from  stem  H3B  to  turn  away,   -*«  oilier. 

6.  Separation,  "^(?) 

c)  Negative  by  transference  of  force: 

1.  Conditional,  Heb.  Q5<  if,  Arab,  ^j!  if. 

2.  Interrogative,  Arab.  La ,  Heb.  "P&< . 

d)  Negative  by  suggestion: 

1.  Emptiness,  D"H. 

2.  Vanity,  biH-  ' 

3.  Falsehood,  'jfNZJ. 

:  t  - 

•4.  Waste  or  desolation,  t)nn  • 

Cf.  the   implications   in   such   English  expressions  as  almost, 
hardly,  eke, 

III. 

THE    NEGATIVE   OF    PUKE    DISSENT. 

Of  the  Semitic  negatives,  by  far  the  most  frequent  and  the 
one  which  alone  is  found  in  every  language  of  the  group  is  the 
simple  particle  of  dissent  or  pure  negation,  of  which  the  essential 
part  is  the  consonantal  sound  I.  That  this  is  the  essential  ele- 
ment in  all  the  score  or  more  of  forms  in  which  it  appears  is 
shown  in  the  great  variety  of  vowels  by  which  its  pronunciation 


12  The  Semitic  Negative 

is  assisted  and  by  the  fact  that  its  vowel  may  be  long  or  short 
and  may  follow  or  precede.     Thus  the  vowel 

is  long  in  ab ,  hblb ,    if,    JJJ,    %S,   %[,    5f| ,    Assyr.   la-a, 

f,  «£,  tuL,  lib',  rrb; 

is  short  in  b«  (b&),  jj,  UJ,  ^J ,  bH(?)  (Phoen.),  Assyr.  ul, 
and  fiSVfl  ; 

is  a  in    ^J ,    ^  ,    Si",    5M  ,    Si ,   j) ,    ai ,  *JL ,  «b  ,  b»  ,  jjj , 

UJ,  ^,  b«(?)  (Phoen.),  ft**; 

is  £  in  ^b  ,  tvb  ;  e  in  b& ,  tc  in  u  1 ,  and  6  in  &<b  . 

It  follows  the  consonant  in  most  forms,  but  precedes  in  b& , 
Assyrian  ul,  and  fi£VO  (albo). 

The  simplest  form  in  which  this  negative  appears  is  the 
Arabic  $ ,  which,  though  there  is  in  it  an  aliph  of  prolongation, 
employs  this  only  as  a  support  for  the  fatha,  for  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  in  the  colloquial,  to  which  rather  than  to  poetry  we  must  go 
for  analogies  of  primitive  values,  the  word  is  as  often  pronounced 
short;  and  so  always  in  ^kj  ,  where  the  accent,  so  far  as  it  has 

any,  falls  on  the  first  syllable.  Without  this  supporting  aliph, 
which  is  not  a  hamza  though  often  sounded  as  such,  the  negative 
would  consist  of  a  single  consonant  with  its  vowel  point  standing 
alone,  a  combination  that  nowhere  occurs  in  Arabic,  a  particle 
consisting  of  a  single  consonant  and  its  vowel  always  attaching 
itself  as  proclitic  or  enclitic.  The  negative  as  proclitic  is  found 
in  the  Ethiopic  A.  and  Hebrew  ''JS  and  in  Indo-European  in-, 
un-,  alpha  privative,  etc.,  but  in  Arabic  would  be  liable  to  con- 
fusion with  the  prepositions  or  the  J  of  the  jussive  or  the  assev- 
erative  J  .  A  single  consonant  must  attach  itself  to  a  following 
word  or  take  a  vowel  letter,  as  in  £  and  Lo  ,  and  .  j> ,  ^i> ,  |<j> . 
In  Assyrian  the  syllable  is  in  some  cases  definitely  indicated  as 
long  by  the  repetition  of  the  vowel  (la-a),  but  elsewhere  is 
undetermined.  The  Hebrew,  Syriac  and  Biblical  Aramaic  always 
point  it  long  in  the  forms  in  which  the  vowel  follows  the  conso- 
nant, but  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  can  at  most  indicate  the 
usage  in  pronunciation  at  the  time  when  the  vowel  points  were 
invented,  and  while  the  Hebrew  has  adopted  a  sufficient  variety 


The  Semitic  Negative  13 

of  vowel  points  to  indicate  fine  shades  of  distinction  in  its  vowel 
sounds,  the  Syriac  shows  that  the  same  pointing  may  in  different 
branches  of  the  language  be  given  very  diverse  pronunciation, 
while  the  three  vowel  points  of  the  Arabic,  a  comparatively  late 
addition  to  the  alphabetic  writing,  are  quite  inadequate  to  dis- 
tinguish the  variety  of  vowel  sounds  found  in  the  spoken  Arabic 
of  today,  and  probably  when  invented,  only  roughly  represented 
the  three  principal  groups  of  vowel  sounds  then  employed.  The 
utter  confusion  of  values  in  the  English  vowel  system  is  an  extreme 
illustration  of  what  is  true  in  a  measure  in  Arabic,  and  though 
the  Hebrew  system  of  vowel  points  is  more  minute,  it  is  an  arti- 
ficial system  and  can  at  best  represent  the  pronunciation  of 
Hebrew  as  it  was  at  a  comparatively  late  date,  and  possibly  also 
over  a  limited  area.*  It  can  furnish  no  indication  of  primitive 
Semitic  pronunciation  nor  decide,  as  against  the  phenomena  of 
modern  colloquial  Arabic,  that  the  particle  I  always  employed  a 
long  vowel.  The  sound  which  we  give  to  the  Hebrew  holem  is 
as  difficult  for  the  modern  Syrian  Arab  as  French  u  is  for  an 
Englishman.  It  may  have  been  equally  so  for  the  ancient  Israelite, 
and  the  length  of  the  vowel  sound  in  the  negative  particle  may 
have  been  determined  as  in  the  modern  colloquial  Arabic  by  the 
amount  of  emphasis  thrown  upon  the  word  or  the  character  of  the 
emotion  expressed. 

The  significance  of  the  longer  writing  of  the  Assyrian  particle, 
1  a  -  a ,  is  not  clear,  nor  that  of  the  longer  form  of  the  Hebrew 
Kib  .  Does  the  longer  form  indicate  anything  as  to  length  or 
emphasis  in  the  original  pronunciation,  or  is  it  in  the  Assyrian 
merely  a  scribal  device  for  making  the  line  come  out  right,  or  is 
it  accidental  in  both,  or  is  it  a  jH'rsonal  scribal  characteristic?  The 
following  table  and  discussion  on  the  Hebrew  particle  will  present 
some  of  the  facts,  though  they  may  discover  no  important  princi- 
ples. The  most  obvious  fact  is  that  the  long  form  is  found  most 
frequently  in  composition  with  the  interrogative  particle  "H  .  For 
comparison  therefore  the  table  gives  the  number  of  cases  where 
the  short  form  is  found  with  TI  and  where  the  long  form  is 
found  without  "H  including  a  few  cases  where  it  is  found  with  the 
preposition  21 . 

•  Cf.  the  local  variations  in  pronunciation  of  the  German  affirmative  particle  ja. 


14 


The  Semitic  Negative 


In  the  accompanying  table  it  is  seen  that  the  long  form  occurs 

with  H  interrogative  141  times,  but  the  same  Jl  takes  the  short 

form  nearly  as  many  times,  namely  128,    *,._■__ 

,,.-.,,  ,  .,«;     j.  ta_    Table  C. — Occurrences  of 

while  the  long  form  occurs  without  »  i        ^^    s»^>-7  anci  s±>\ 

35  times.     From  this  it  is  evident  that 

the  particle  Jl  does  not  determine  the 

form  of  the  negative.     Is  the  long  form 

then  characteristic  of  certain  (a)  books, 

(6)  authors,  (c)  periods  of  time  or  (d) 

qualities  of  style  and  subject  matter,  as 

poetical  or  prose,  historical  or  liturgical  ? 

As  to  (a)  books,  it  is  seen  that  in 
the  compound,  12  books  use  only  the 
long  form,  while  5  use  only  the  short, 
or,  leaving  out  those  books  in  which 
the  occurrence  is  so  rare  as  hardly  to  be 
considered  characteristic,  and  taking  the 
two  books  of  Samuel  as  one  and  the  two 
books  of  Chronicles  as  one,  we  find  that 
Judges,  Job,  and  Chronicles  use  the 
short  form  exclusively,  occurring  re- 
spectively 13,  14,  and  19  times,  while 
Samuel  is  characterized  by  the  exclusive 
use  of  the  long  form,  occurring  34 
times.  But  in  15  books  both  forms 
occur,  some  showing  a  preference  for 
the  one,  some  for  the  other.  The  dis- 
tinction therefore  can  hardly  be  one  of 
books. 

Is  the  distinction  (6)  one  of  author- 
ship? Ezekiel,  which  is  confessedly 
the  work  of  one  author,  uses  the  two 
forms  in  the  compound  impartially,  8  to 
8.  So  also  do  Amos  and  Ruth,  each  2 
to  2.  Jeremiah  indeed  shows  a  decided 
though  not  exclusive  preference  for  the 
long  form,  14  to  3,  and  in  the  uncompounded  particle,  uses  the 
long  form  19  times  as  against  5  times  in  the  two  Isaiahs,  which 


tfbn 

vrton  xi 

3 

Gen.  .  . . 

5 

8 

1 

Ex 

3 

1      .. 

Lev 

1 

Num. . . . 

"6 

2      .. 

Deut.... 

3 

1 

Josh. .  . . 

1 

2      .. 

Judg 

1  Sam.. . 

13 

'26 

2 

2  Sam. . . 

14     .. 

1  Kgs. . . 

2  Kgs. . . 
Isa 

"9 
17 

7 

6 

12     .. 
18 

a 
5 

Jer 

3 

14       1 

9 

Ezek. . . . 

8 

8 

2 

Hos 

Joel 

"i    '.'. 

Amos. . . 

"2 

2    .. 

Obad.... 

4    .. 

Jon 

1    .. 

Mic 

5    . 

Nah 

Hab 

4    '. 

Zeph. . . . 

Hag 

Zech. . . . 

"i 

i    ! 
5    . 

Mai 

3    . 

Ps 

ii 

1    . 

Prov. . . . 

3 

1    . 

Job 

14 

Cant. . . . 

Kuth . . . 

"2 

"2    ! 

Lam. . . . 

i 

Eccles... 

i 

i 

Esther.  . 

"i    . 

Dan 

Ezra 

i    ! 

Neh 

3    . 

1  Chron 

"4 

2  Chron 

15 

Total... 

128 

141      1 

55 

The  Semitic  Negative  15 

make  the  next  most  frequent  use  of  it.  Testing  the  question  on 
the  commonly  accepted  documentary  division  of  Isaiah  we  have 
the  following  table  of  occurrences,  showing  that  both  forms 
occur  in  each  main  section  and  often  in  close  proximity:  Long, 
8:19;  28:25;37:26;  40:214;  42:24;  43:19;  44:20;  45:21;  48:6; 
51:9,  10;  57:4;  58:6,7.  Short,  10:8,9,11;  29:17;  36:12;  44:8; 
57:11.     The  distinction  therefore  cannot  be  one  of  authorship. 

As  to  (c)  period,  we  find  that  the  widely  separated  books  of 
Judges  and  Chronicles  agree  in  the  exclusive  use  of  the  short 
form,  while  Daniel  (V),  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  approximately  con- 
temporary with  Chronicles,  use  only  the  long  form. 

As  to  ((/)  literary  style  and  subject  matter,  we  find  that  the 
prophets  from  Hosea  to  Malachi,  with  the  exception  of  Amos  and 
Ezekiel,  who  are  impartial,  and  Hosea,  Nahum  and  Zephaniah, 
who  furnish  no  data,  prefer  the  long  to  the  short  form,  56  to  11, 
while  the  wisdom  literature  of  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job  and  Eccle- 
siastes  prefers  the  short  form  by  29  to  2.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
Judges  and  Job,  as  diverse  as  possible,  in  these  respects  agree  in 
the  exclusive  use  of  the  short  form,  while  Judges  and  Samuel, 
similar  in  subject  matter,  are  at  opposites,  Samuel  using  only  the 
long  form.  Equally  fruitless  is  the  effort  to  find  any  euphonic  or 
syntactical  distinction,  as  appears,  e.  g.f  in  Isa.  65:1, 

&H8  aibb  Tra-na 

t  t  •    :    -  :  • 

"pwpa  abb  "TWSSffl 

where  in  the  same  verse,  by  the  same  author,  in  the  same  con- 
struction and  practically  the  same  euphonic  conditions,  we  have 
the  two  forms.  We  are  left  to  the  conclusion  therefore  that  in 
some  books  the  long  form  is  due  to  arbitrary  scribal  preference, 
and  in  others  to  scribal  inconsistency  and  carelessness  perpet- 
uated by  scribal  scrupulosity,  or  else,  wherever  it  occurs  it  was 
intended  originally  to  indicate  some  emphasis  whose  force  is  now 
lost  to  us,  the  further  definition  of  which  in  a  dead  language  and 
in  the  absence  of  any  direct  ancient  testimony,  would  be  mere 
conjecture.  The  view  that  the  long  form  is  a  less  corrupted  relic 
of  an  original  triliteral  verb  form  *  fails  to  account  for  its  preser- 

*  Presented  by  Dietrich  in  QeseniuH    W'Orterbuch,  see  fc{5  .  criticised  by  Bottcher,  Lehr- 
buch  dtr  hrbriiischen  Sprache,  g  532,  p.  340,  footnote  1. 


16  The  Semitic  Negative 

vation  in  the  same  author  and  in  close  proximity  with  the  shorter 
form,  and  there  is  no  good  ground  for  supposing  that  this  nega- 
tive particle  ever  was  a  noun.*  To  the  question  whether  the 
noun  or  the  verb  was  the  earliest  of  the  parts  of  speech  the  true 
answer  is  "neither;  but  the  interjection,"  and  in  the  negative  par- 
ticle I  we  have  preserved  one  of  the  original  interjections. 

In  the  use  of  this  common  particle  I,  three  members  of  the 
Semitic  family,  the  Hebrew,  Biblical  Aramaic,  and  Phoenician 
have  differentiated  a  form  to  distinguish  between  prohibition  and 
deprecation,  using  for  the  latter  the  form  b&  in  which  the  vowel 
precedes  the  consonant.  No  such  distinction  is  found  in  Arabic, 
Assyrian,  Syriac,  or  Ethiopic.  The  explanation  of  the  form  lies, 
perhaps,  in  this,  that  a  form  beginning  with  a  short  vowel  is  less 
explosive  than  one  beginning  with  a  consonant  and  can  less  easily 
be  prolonged  for  emphasis  than  one  ending  in  a  vowel.  Hence 
its  effect  is  milder  and  it  serves  to  express  the  milder  feeling  of 
entreaty.  In  actual  usage,  however,  the  two  forms  are  some- 
times found  in  the  same  sentence  with  consecutive  verbs  or  nouns 
where  no  distinction  of  force  can  be  assumed,  cf.  Lev.  10:6. 
Where,  as  in  this  case,  the  H'b  follows  the  biS ,  it  might  be  consid- 
ered a  case  of  fcib  used  to  perpetuate  another  negative,  a  construc- 
tion common  enough  with  ^f  in  Arabic,  but  extremely  rare  with 
fcO  in  Hebrew.  But  in  Prov.  27 : 2,  where  the  negatives  are  used 
with  nouns,  we  have  the  reversed  order,  from  which  we  must  con- 
clude that  in  some  cases,  at  least,  no  distinction  is  made.  We 
have  also  two  cases,  Prov.  12:28  (with  noun)  and  Cant.  7:3  (with 
verb)  where,  if  the  rendering  of  the  Revised  Version  be  accepted, 
b^  is  not  jussive  but  declarative. 

It  is  with  some  hesitation  that  the  Assyrian  u  1  is  classed  with 
the  I  negatives.  The  word  is  usually  considered  as  the  construct 
state  of  a  noun,  ullu,  "non-existence,  nothingness,"  from  a  verb, 
al&lu,  "be  feeble,  nought,"  cf.  Zimmern,  Busspsalmen,  p.  83,  and 
others. \  But  if  bfc*  has  any  connection  with  fcO,  it  seems  equally 
probable  that  ul  is  another  form  of  la  from  which  it  differs  in 
usage  even  less  than  bfc<  from  fcO .  J    The  particular  force  of  u  1  has 

*  See  to  the  contrary  Gesenius-Kautzsch  Hebrtiische  Grammatik,  §  100, 1. 
fDelitzsch,  Assyrisches  WOrterbuch;  Idem,  Prolegomena,  133,  Halevy,  Melanges  Wipi- 
graphie,  165. 

t  Cf.,  however,  Assyrian  al  in  proper  name  Al-dugla-nisS,  II  Rawl.  63c,  42. 


The  Semitic  Negative  17 

not  been  determined.  Delitzsch  is  inclined  to  make  the  distinc- 
tion that  ul  is  used  only  in  principal  clauses  while  la  is  found  in 
both  principal  and  subordinate  constructions  and  with  all  the 
parts  of  speech  susceptible  of  negation.*  The  suggestion  is  due 
to  Dr.  Geo.  R.  Berry,  of  The  University  of  Chicago,  that  there 
may  be  in  u  1  an  emphasis  of  contrast,  the  suggestion  being  based 
on  several  passages, — Tig.Pil.  I.,  cols.  1:72;  5:38;  7:68,  70:  Asur- 
nas.  1:43,  108, —  where  the  king  in  his  treatment  of  a  conquered 
city  or  the  rebuilding  of  a  temple  does  not  follow  the  precedents : 
"that  city  (contrary  to  the  usual  custom)  I  did  not  destroy, 
devastate  and  burn  with  tire." 

In  Syriac,  alongside  of  g  we  find  o^,  a  stronger  negative 
compounded  of  g"  and  on . 

In  Arab.  {jUjJ  Syr.  *  -V;  Bib.  Aram.  Xvb  and  Assyr.  lassu, 
we  have  compounds  of  this  primitive  I  and  the  noun  of  existence 
ye$.  The  Aramaic  of  Daniel  and  Ezra  fails  to  compound  the  two 
parts  but  has  ^IVK"Nb  and  the  Hebrew  has  ID"  *6  and  1ZT  fit . 
The  Arabic,  on  the  contrary,  not  only  compounds  the  parts,  but 
losing  sight  of  the  original  character  of  the  parts,  treats  the  com- 
pound as  a  verb,  defective  indeed  but  capable  of  considerable 
inflection  for  person  and  number. 

IV. 

NEGATIVE  by  transference. 

Under  this  term  is  included  the  use  of  the  interrogative  and 
conditional  particles  as  negatives,  represented  by  the  Arabic  Lo 
and  «J   and  the  Hebrew  fN  and  D«  . 

The  transition  of  a  particle  from  an  interrogative  to  a  negative 
force  is  a  process  depending  upon  the  frequency  of  a  certain  use 
of  the  interrogative  known  as  the  rhetorical  question.  The  rhe- 
torical question  is  one  of  the  most  emphatic  means  for  conveying 
a  positive  idea,  and  even  before  the  introductory  particle  has  lost 
its  interrogative  character,  the  force  of  the  sentence  as  a  whole 
has  become  that  of  a  negative  assertion.  Thus  in  English,  "What 
have  I  done?"  spoken  in  a  tone  of  indignant  surprise  means 
emphatically,   "I   have   done   nothing    (for   which    I   should    be 

*  Dolitzscli,  Assyrian  Grammar,  1889,  §  143,  p.  352. 


18  The  Semitic  Negative 

blamed)."  So  in  Hebrew,  "Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he  should 
do  this  thing?"  is  an  emphatic  disclaimer  of  a  disparaging  impu- 
tation. In  modern  Arabic,  a  man  excusing  himself  from  some 
mishap,  exclaims,  subeddi  'amil,  "What  did  I  (or,  "do  I") 
want  to  do?"  =  "What  could  I  do  (under  the  circumstances)?" 
the  equivalent  of  the  English  plea,  "  I  couldn't  help  it."  In  all 
these  cases,  it  is  the  rhetorical  question,  expecting  no  answer 
because  assuming  that  there  can  be  but  one  answer,  and  hence 
very  emphatic.  The  question  for  information  may  be  very 
urgent,  but  can  never  be  emphatic  because  by  its  very  nature  it 
implies  doubt,  an  inquiring  rather  than  an  assertive  state  of  mind. 
But  the  rhetorical  question  is  used  only  where  the  speaker  knows 
that  there  can  be  but  one  answer,  and  that  one  in  accordance 
with  his  own  view.  Hence  it  is  in  force  equivalent  to  a  statement 
of  axiomatic  value,  that  is,  a  very  positive  and  emphatic  one. 
Hence  the  particle  converted  from  this  rhetorical  interrogative 
use  to  do  duty  as  a  negative  will  be  somewhat  more  emphatic 
than  the  ordinary  negative.  This  will  be  shown  in  a  discussion 
of  the  Arabic  Lo  . 

There  is,  however,  another  process  by  which  the  negative 
may  be  derived  from  the  interrogative  value.  The  interrogative 
may  be,  not  substantive,  but  adverbial,  i.  e.,  it  may  ask,  not 
"what?"  but  "where?"  or  "how?"  and  this  may  pass  into  a 
negative  force  by  the  following  process.  So  long  as  the  query 
"where?"  is  in  the  mind,  there  is  a  consciousness  of  the  absence 
or  notness  of  the  object  sought,  and  the  longer  the  query  remains 
unanswered,  the  stronger  becomes  the  sense  of  notness,  and  this 
sense  of  notness,  at  first  local,  if  the  search  be  continued  long 
enough,  will  become  a  sense  of  absolute  non-existence.  Hence 
the  sense  of  whereness  and  notness,  inseparably  associated,  come 
in  time  to  be  identified,  and  the  same  particle  may  then  serve 
as  the  sign  of  either.  This  has,  in  fact,  occurred  in  the  Semitic 
languages,  and  is  possibly  represented  in  the  Hebrew  particle 
"PiS  and  its  cognates. 

The  negatives  derived  from  the  interrogatives  are  all  based 
upon  the  interrogative  roots,  m  and  ay.  The  former  as  a  negative 
is  confined  to  the  Arabic,  with  possibly  a  few  cases  in  Hebrew 
(c/.  under  ftfl  in  Table  E,  Syntactical  Constructions) ;  the  latter 


The  Semitic  Negative  19 

is  most  frequent  in  Hebrew  and  Ethiopic,  and  appears  possibly 
in  the  Assyrian^  but  is  not  found  in  Arabic.  We  will  first 
develop  the  negative  of  the  m  root. 

A.  The  Arabic  Negative  Lo. —  Like  the  negative  consonant 
I  of  pure  dissent  in  the  Indo-European,  the  interrogative  root  m 
is  found  with  different  vowels  under  different  circumstances. 
For  the  impersonal  or  neuter  it  appears  in  Arabic  as  Lo  and  for 
the  personal  as  Jwo ,  but  this  in  the  colloquial  modern  Arabic  has 
also  the  pronunciation  Jw-oc  with  the  kcsra  lengthened  perhaps  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  preposition  l\Je .  In  Hebrew  we  find  it 
with  the  a  vowel  for  the  impersonal,  TV2  and  the  t  vowel  for 
the  personal  **2.  In  this  long  i,  the  Hebrew  corresponds  to  the 
colloquial  Arabic,  which  raises  the  question  whether  both  may 
not  be  a  degeneration  from  the  original  a  which  the  written 
Arabic  has  preserved  in  t>oth  personal  and  impersonal  J»vo  and  Lo  . 

Of  these  two  forms,  it  is  only  the  impersonal  that  has  passed 
into  the  interrogative  force.  The  reason  for  this  is  plain.  There 
is  indeed  no  logical  reason  why  the  rhetorical  question,  "  WTiom 
have  I  on  earth  beside  Thee?"  should  not  come  to  be  read  as  a 
negative  statement,  "I  have  no  one  on  earth  beside  Thee,"  as 
well  as  that  the  question,  "  What  could  I  do?"  should  come  to 
mean,  "I  could  do  nothing."  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  transition  of  the  particle  from  the  interrogative  to  the  negative 
force  depend!  entirely  upon  the  frequency  of  its  use,  that  is,  the 
rhetorical  question  must  l>e  used  so  frequently  as  to  become  a 
stereotyped  formula  for  a  negative  thought.  The  personal 
Interrogative  in  rhetorical  question  has  never  attained  to  such 
frequent  use  as  to  become  a  stereotyped  formula,  and  it  is  for  the 
same  reason  that  in  Hebrew7  even  the  impersonal  TV2  cannot  be 
regarded  as  a  negative  except  in  the  two  places  in  Cant.  8:4, 
where  the  structure  of  the  sentence  for  the  sake  of  analogy  with 
2:7  and  3:5  demands  it. 

In  treating  this  particle  Lo  we  note  first  that  as  distinguished 

from  the  adverbial  and  qualitative  interrogative  J ,  this  is  the 
substantive  interrogative,  and  as  such  may  be  nominative  or  accu- 
sative,  and  as   nominative    may  be  either  subject  or  predicate 


20  The  Semitic  Negative 

nominative,  and  as  accusative  may  be  the  direct  object  or  the 
second  accusative  appositive  to  the  object,  or  the  adverbial  accu- 
sative. 

The  following  cases  from  the  Quran  taken  first  as  interrog- 
ative will  illustrate  these  uses.  Sur.  86:10  s._i>  ^  x  x_J  i  t  i 
(  -olj  ^L).     Neglecting  the   second   part,   we   may   read,   "For 

what  (is  there)  to  him  of  power?"  in  which  the  Lc  is  subject 
nominative,  a  rhetorical  question  which  easily  becomes  the  nega- 
tive statement,  "For  he  has  no  power,"  which  is  continued 
and  determined  as  negative  by  the  negative  -»oLj  ^1.  "nor 
helper."  Compare  with  this  the  similar  construction  in  Hebrew, 
1  Kgs.  12:16,  "TlT-pa  nbTO-abl  THS  pbn  XhTm  where,  how- 
ever, we  are  to  regard  the  first  clause  as  remaining  a  rhetorical 
interrogative,*  because  the  form  is  not  so  frequent  in  Hebrew  as 
in  Arabic,  and  the  j$^  in  Hebrew,  unlike  the  ^  in  Arabic,  is  not 
used  to  continue  another  negative.  Sur.  97:2,  &JLJ  Lo  ij!)J>!  Lo. 
xJJlH  "And  what  can  show  thee  what  the  night  of  power  is?" 
Here  the  first  Lo  is  plainly  subject  nominative  to  ijK^I  and  has 
not  departed  from  its  interrogative  force,  since  to  do  so  would 
leave  the  verb  without  a  subject;  while  the  second  Lo  is  as  clearly 
a  predicate  nominative  to  the  nominal  sentence  of  which  jjJLJ 
k  JuLlt  is  the  logical  subject,  and  could  not  be  rendered  as  a  nega- 
tive without  breaking  the  connection  of  the  clauses. 

For  Lo  as  predicate  nominative  compare  also  Sur.  70:41  Lc. 
^xi*  »x*ul»j  „^  "And  what  are  we  among  (or  as)  those  pre- 
vented?" cf.  German:  Was  ftir  ....  sind  wir?  Here  the  ^s! 
is  the  logical  subject  and  Lo  the  predicate  nominative,  but  the 
sentence  becomes  "We  are  not  among  those  prevented." 

Of  the  three  accusative  uses,  that  of  the  direct  object  is  rare. 
In  Sur.  53:3,  ,^5-g-H  ^  ijiaJb  Lo.  "And  what  does  he  speak  out 
v.f  lust?"  =  "He  never  speaks  out  of  lust,"  the  Lo  is  (originally) 
dnect  object  of  ,xUi^. 

In  the  two  clauses  immediately  preceding  this,  *jC^.Lo  Jus  Lo 
i£y£-  «>j  ,  "Your  companion  does  not  err  nor  does  he  go  astray," 
the  two  Lo 's  traced  back  in  the  same  way  to  the  rhetorical  inter- 

*  Cf.  also  2  Sam.  20:1,  where  "pjt  is  to  be  similarly  explained. 


The  Semitic  Negative  21 

rogative  give  us  adverbial  accusatives,  "In  what  respect  does  your 
companion  err  and  in  what  respect  does  he  go  astray?"  Here 
the  original  interrogative  force  of  Lo  is  attested  by  its  use  in  the 
second  clause,  since  had  the  first  Lo  been  merely  a  negative,  it 
would  more  probably  have  been  continued  by  ^1 .  A  good  case 
of  accusative  of  measure  or  cognate  accusative  is  found  in  Sur. 
74:49,  ^xjtiLxJ!  «xLi*i  *gto*.>  Li  "For  what  will  the  inter- 
cession of  the  intercessors  avail  them  ?"=  the  intercession  of  the 
intercessors  will  avail  them  nothing,  will  not  avail  them. 

In  this  way  most  of  the  negative  uses  of  Lo  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  interrogative,  but  there  remain  a  few  in  which  the 
particle  in  the  construction  in  which  it  stands  cannot  be  rendered 
as  interrogative  because  the  sentence  without  it  is  fully  supplied 
with  all  it  can  contain  of  subject  and  predicate  nominative,  and 
object  and  adverbial  accusative.  Thus  in  Sur.  74:34,  jJLu  Lo. 
•je  ^M  Jb»  k>**=»  "And  not  does  anyone  know  the  armies  of  thy 
Lord  except  He,"  the  Lo  cannot  be  subject  nominative  because  a 
onal  subject  is  required;  it  cannot  be  predicate  nominative 
because  the  verb  is  transitive;  it  cannot  be  object  accusative 
became  that  is  supplied  by  j^xa*.  ;  and  there  is  no  occasion  for 
an  adverbial  accusative.  The  sentence  therefore  could  not  be 
originally  a  rhetorical  question,  and  the  Lo  could  be  nothing 
else  than  a  negative.  Here  then  is  a  clear  case  of  Lo  as  having 
become  I  negative  before  entering  into  the  sentence.  It  has 
come  to  be  a  negative  particle  in  and  of  itself,  and  capable  of 
being  used  like  $  in  sentences  that  cannot  be  read  as  rhetorical 
interrogativee.  Such  extreme  cases,  however,  are  rare,  and 
nearly  all  sentences  with  Lo  show  a  trace  of  their  interrogative 
origin. 

What  now  is  the  peculiar  force  of  the  negative  Lo  as  distin- 
guished from  i) .  It  has  been  customary  to  say,  following  the 
native  grammarians,  that  Lo  is  used  with  the  perfect,  generally  of 
past  time,  and  is  more  emphatic  than  ^.  Thus  Lansing*  has 
"  Lo  =  not,  negative  of  the  absolute  present  and  of  the  perfect." 
It  has  also  been  said  that  the  restrictives f  ^| ,  etc.,  following  a 
negative    prefer    the    negative    Lo .      But   while    this   is  true  in 

*  Lansing,  An  Arabic  Manual,  §  72,  p.  123. 

t  Ewalrt,  Grammatica  Critica  Linguae  Arabicae,  Part  II.,  pp.  201-3. 


22  The  Semitic  Negative 

many  cases,  it  is  too  general  and  the  exceptions  are  too  numerous. 
Lo  is  used  freely  with  both  the  perfect  and  imperfect  tenses  and 
in  speaking  of  past,  present  and  future  time.  And  as  for  S)| ,  it 
is  found  more  often,  indeed,  preceded  by  Lo  ,  but  so  frequently 
by  ^|  and  sometimes  by  5J ,  that  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  it 
is  the  ^l|  that  calls  for  a  Lo ,  but  something  further  back  than 
the  mere  presence  of  a  restrictive.  We  must  find  some  more  fun- 
damental distinction  between  Lo  and  ^ .  The  following  exam- 
ples will  show  how  varied  is  the  use  of  Lo  as  to  form  of  verb  used 
and  time  referred  to,  and  will  serve  as  a  means  by  which  to  arrive 
at  the  basal  principle. 

1.  With  perfect  tense  of  past  time,  Sur.  67:10,  ^  L_^_5^  Lx 
r^xMJ\  ^Lsx-o!  "We  would  not  have  been  among  the  fellows  of 
the  blaze."  Sur.  53:11,  A  Lo  ^yd\  ^Sf  Lo  "The  heart  did 
not  belie  what  it  saw,"  referring  to  a  definite  past  event.  Sur. 
53:17,  ,-iis  Lo.  wO-Jl  cK  Lo  "The  sight  did  not  turn  aside  nor 

waver,"  referring  to  an  incident  of  Muhammad's  vision. 

2.  With  perfect  tense  of  present  time  (?)  Sur.  26:208,  Lo. 
■  j.^jouo  L$J  $\  So  3  ^wo  LuCJbeJ  "And  we  never  destroy  (Palmer), 
destroyed  (Sale),  a  town  except  it  has  (had)  warners."  For  a 
clearer  case,  in  which  Palmer  and  Sale  are  agreed  in  rendering 
the  verbs  in  the  present,  and  the  parallelism  supports  this  render- 
ing, we  have  Sur.  53:2,  ^...c.  Lo.  ^jC^Lo  Jco  Lo  "Your  com- 
panion does  not  err,  nor  does  he  go  astray."  In  v.  3  the  thought 
is  carried  out  with  Lo  and  the  imperfect,  tf«.A.'t  ,^-e.  ls^t5.  ^°5 
"nor  does  he  speak  out  of  lust."  The  words  occurring  at  the 
opening  of  the  surah  are  an  assertion  of  the  prophet's  veracity 
and  credibility  with  reference,  not  to  some  past  occasion,  but  to 
what  he  is  about  to  say;  hence  we  may  fairly  assume  that  present 
time  is  intended  and  that  the  three  verbs,  two  in  the  perfect  and 
one  in  the  imperfect,  are  used  without  distinction. 

3.  With  imperfect  referring  to  present  time  Sur.  67:19,  Lo 
vt^ J  ^|  ^.^jCva+j  "Not  does  there  hold  them  (the  birds)  up, 

except  the  Merciful." 

4.  With  imperfect  referring  to  the  future,  Sur.  92:11,  Lo. 
^t>  3  \'c>\  «JLo  &Xs.    <JJu  "And  not  shall  his  wealth  avail   him 


The  Semitic  Negative  23 

when  he  falls  down"  (into  hell),  referring  to  the  day  of  judg- 
ment, hence,  evidently  future,  cf.  also  Sur.  74:49  above. 

In  nominal  sentences,  also,  the  Lo  is  used  with  equal  freedom 
as  to  time,  though  for  the  past  for  definiteness  we  usually  find 
the  verb  ^S  expressed,  as  in  Sur.  67:10,  ^Usv^ol  .i  \j&  Lo 
^ouwJI  where  we  might  have  had  (j^l  Lo  but  for  the  ambiguity 
as  to  time. 

In  the  present  we  have,  Sur.  81:25,  *-^»  ^Ik-u*  Jjb  *#  Lo, 

"And  it  is  not  the  word  of  a  pelted  devil."  In  the  future,  Sur. 
82:16,  ^jjuu\ju  L$a£  *jc  Lo.  "And  they  will  not  be  among  the 
absent  from  it,"  i.  c,  from  the  broiling  in  hell  on  the  judgment 
day. 

From  the  abort  rod  similar  passages  we  find  that  Lo  is  used 
with  the  perfect  tense  for  present  and  past  time,  with  the  imper- 
fect for  present  and  future  time  and  in  nominal  sentences  for 
present  and  future  time.  The  distinction  between  Lo  and  ^  there- 
fore has  primarily  nothing  to  do  with  the  tense  used  or  the  time 
referred  to,  but  must  be  sought  in  the  nature,  i.  <?.,  in  the  original 
force,  of  the  particle  itself.  We  shall  find  that  all  the  phenom- 
ena of  Lo ,  the  tenses  used,  its  preference  for  present  and  past 
time,  its  greater  emphasis  as  compared  with  *$ ,  are  sufficiently 
explained  by  its  origin  as  an  interrogative  and  its  transition  to 
the  negative  force  through  the  rhetorical  question. 

The  rhetorical  interrogative  as  a  substitute  for  a  positive  asser- 
tion of  a  fact  is  a  stronger  method  of  conveying  the  thought,  but 
can  be  safely  resorted  to  only  where  the  facts  are  so  well  known  or 
at  least  are  so  far  matter  of  general  consent  that  the  speaker  can 
be  reasonably  sure  that  the  answer,  should  one  be  returned, 
would  accord  with  the  impression  he  intends  to  convey.  If  he  is 
addressing  his  own  partisans,  he  may  venture  the  rhetorical  ques- 
tion with  more  freedom  than  in  speaking  to  opponents.  Such  a 
question  answered  in  the  affirmative  when  a  negative  answer  is 
called  for  would  be  fatal  to  the  purpose  of  the  speaker. 

On  what  classes  of  facts  now,  may  a  speaker  venture  to  put 
his  teachings  in  the  interrogative  form?  There  are  two  such 
classes,  (a)  facts  of  the  past  and  present  of  which  his  hearers 
may  reasonably  be  supposed  to  have  positive  historical  knowledge 


24  The  Semitic  Negative 

or  present  experience,  including  such  facts  in  revealed  religion  as 
have  had  their  event  in  the  past,  which,  though  not  matter  of 
human  experience,  have  yet  been  accepted  with  equal  positiveness 
as  facts,  cf.  Sur.  74:30,  and  (6)  general  truths  holding  good  for 
all  time  and  doctrines  as  to  the  future  on  which  there  is  a 
general  consensus  in  the  moral  and  religious  consciousness  of 
the  hearers. 

Of  course  in  either  of  these  cases  the  speaker  in  his  confidence 
in  his  own  position  may  be  led  to  substitute  his  own  assurance 
for  that  of  his  hearers,  as  when  in  Sur.  53:17  the  prophet  relates 
with  great  positiveness  the  details  of  his  vision,  forgetting  that 
these  could  not  be  matters  of  experience  with  his  followers  nor 
of  general  acceptance  as  history,  but  relying  on  the  unques- 
tioning faith  of  his  followers  in  himself  as  sufficient  to  inspire 
them  with  as  much  assurance  as  personal  experience  could  have 
furnished. 

As  illustrative  of  confidence  in  historical  facts  the  prophet  in 
Sur.  39:51,  referring  to  the  destruction  of  Thamud  and  Ad, 
exclaims,  ^^x^Jo  l^jl^Lo  «$**  ^t.\  Ui  "What  then  did  that 
avail  them  which  they  had  been  engaged  in  acquiring?"  It  was 
an  unquestioned  tradition  that  the  tribe  of  Thamud  had  amassed 
great  wealth.  It  was  equally  certain  that  a  terrible  destruction 
had  befallen  them.  Hence  the  conclusion  followed  that  their 
wealth  was  of  no  avail,  and  to  the  prophet's  question,  "  Did  that 
wealth  save  them?"  there  could  be  but  one  answer,  "Most 
assuredly  not." 

So  also  in  regard  to  the  fate  of  the  unbelievers  at  the  judg- 
ment day,  Muhammad,  using  the  imperfect  tense  in  this  case, 
could  ask  with  assurance,  "What  will  the  intercession  of  the 
intercessors  avail  them?"  and  again,  "What  will  his  wealth 
profit  him  when  he  falls  down  (into  hell)  ?"  To  these  also  there 
could  be  but  one  answer,  "Nothing";  for  free  grace  at  the  judg- 
ment day  is  something  unknown  to  Islam,  and  no  doctrine  is 
more  emphasized  in  the  Quran  than  that  the  awards  of  the  future 
life  will  be  apportioned  strictly  in  accordance  with  what  men 
have  deserved  by  their  conduct  in  this  life,  so  that  neither  inter- 
cession nor  wealth  will  have  influence  on  the  decision.  (Cf.  Dr 
Chas.  C.  Torrey's  Commercial  -Theological  Terms  in  the  Qur'dn.) 


The  Semitic  Negative  25 

We  can  now  see  why,  as  the  grammars  have  noticed,  Lo  is 
found  more  frequently  with  past  and  absolute  present  time,  and 
is  more  emphatic  than  ^ .  It  is  more  emphatic  because  the  rhe- 
torical question  in  which  it  originated  is  a  more  emphatic  way  of 
conveying  a  negative  idea  than  the  simple  negative  sentence;  and 
it  is  found  more  frequently  with  the  past  and  absolute  present, 
not  because  the  particle  as  such  prefers  one  tense  or  time  rather 
than  another,  but  bectaMH  matters  of  history  and  present  personal 
experience  can  be  more  safely  appealed  to  than  matters  still  in 
the  future,  and  offer  a  wider  range  of  facts.  The  future  is,  of 
necessity,  less  certain  than  the  present  and  past,  and  it  is  only 
where  faith  gives  to  the  future  something  of  the  reality  of  expe- 
rience, that  Le  can  properly  be  used  of  future  time. 

It  cannot  be  maintained,  however,  that  this  distinction  is 
always  in  the  author's  mind  where  Lo  is  found.  Even  in  the 
Quran  there  are  found  such  sentences  as  Sur.  39:(>7,  U>Jo  Lo. 

5»Jl9  lis.  «JU!  "  But  they  have  not  rated  God  at  his  true  power," 

where  it  is  difficult  to  cast  the  thought  in  an  interrogative  form, 
or  to  see  any  special  force  in  the  negative.  In  later  writings  and 
in  colloquial  Arabic  we  must  expect  to  find  Lo  and  *$  used  with 
still  less  discrimination;  yet  even  here,  trained  and  careful 
writers  and  speakers,  though  ignorant  of  the  basis  of  distinc- 
tion, will  feel  a  difference  and  instinctively  choose  the  proper 
particle  according  to  this  law  which  the  grammarians  have  roughly 
formulated. 

In  this  discussion  of  the  Arabic  Lo,  we  have  illustrated  the 
principal  steps  by  which  an  interrogative  particle  undergoes 
transition  to  a  negative  force.  The  transition  of  Lo  from  the 
interrogative  to  the  negative  is  very  simple  and  direct,  involving 
only  two  steps,  (a)  the  transition  of  force  and  (b)  the  forgetting 
of  the  original  force  so  far  as  to  allow  the  use  of  the  particle  as  a 
negative  in  constructions  where  the  interrogative  could  not  stand. 
Here  with  Lo  the  process  stops,  and  as  a  negative  it  never  becomes 
anything  more  than  the  particle  not.  We  will  now  follow  out  a 
similar  process  in  the  Hebrew,  in  which  there  are  more  steps,  and 
where  the  interrogative  particle  not  only  becomes  a  negative 
particle,  but  even  a  noun  of  nothingness. 


26  The  Semitic  NecxAtive 

B.  The  Hebrew  Negative  "pj^ .—  Of  the  three  interrogative 
stems,  m,  ay,  and  ha  or  a,  while  the  Arabic  has  developed  a  neg- 
ative from  the  substantive  interrogative  m,  the  Hebrew  has 
chosen  for  the  same  process  the  qualitative  interrogative  ay,  from 
which  it  has  developed  a  negative  which  occurs  quite  as  fre- 
quently in  Hebrew  as  the  Lo  in  Arabic.  This  negative  is  "TK, 
construct  state  "pS .  To  obtain  this  form,  the  Hebrew  has  added 
an  element  n  to  the  stem  ay,  and  welded  the  two  together  so 
thoroughly  as  to  lose  sight  of  the  original  parts  and  to  treat  the 
compound  as  a  simple  stem,  as  the  Assyrian  and  Syriac  seem  to 
have  treated  in  the  same  manner  some  fi  formations  of  verbs,  and 
as  the  Arabic  has  undoubtedly  dealt  with  the  I  and  ySs  in  its 
inflection  of  {ujjJ .  The  derivation  of  the  Hebrew  "p&$  from  the 
stem  ay  is  not,  therefore,  so  simple  as  that  of  the  negative  Lo 
from  the  stem  tit. 

Two  principal  explanations  have  been  given  of  the  negative 
y&<.  The  first  is  that  of  the  school  of  Gesenius,  which  seeks  to 
find  for  every  form  a  nominal  or  verbal  root,  as  in  its  attempt  to 
make  the  particle  xb  a  relic  of  some  noun*  or  triliteral  verb,f  and 
the  Assyrian  u  1 ,  a  contraction  of  the  verb  a  1  ft  1  u ,  to  be  feeble, 
nought,  and  also  finds  wherever  it  can  a  relation  between  Semitic 
and  Aryan  roots.  In  accordance  with  the  first  purpose,  it  bases 
"pK  upon  a  hypothetical  root  'pK,  and  by  reversing  the  radicals 
connects  it  with  the  extant  verb  {#13,  to  say  "«o,"  and  perhaps 
with  37*13 ,  to  nod,  which  is  found  possible  on  the  analogy  of  the 
Indo-European  ne  and  in-  or  no  and  un-.  In  pursuance  of 
the  second  tendency*  it  makes  this  &W3  and  -p^  to  be  related  to 
the  Indo-European  negative  stem  n.\  It  then  drops  the  "j  from 
"piS  to  get  the  form  "^  on  the  analogy  of  the  a  privative  from  av 
in  Greek,  and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  derive  the  interrogatives 
»T&$  and    J  from  the  negative  by  dropping  the  "I. 

The  second  explanation  has  been  presented  clearly  by  Bott- 
cher||  who  rightly  finds  the  basis  of  "pX  in  the  interrogative  stem 
ay  but  with  some  hesitation  accounts  for  the  "j  as  a  nunnation. 

*  Mitchell's  GcsvniuB1  Hebrew  Grammar,  1893,  p.  255,  and  Gcsenius-Kautzsch,  Hebraische 
Grammatik,  1878,  §  100, 1. 

t  Dietrich  in  Gesenius1  Wiirtcrbuch,  criticised  by  BOttcher,  Lehrbuch  der  hebrtiischcn 
Sprache,  §  532,  p.  340,  footnote  1. 

t  Bottcher's  Lehrbuch  der  hebrdischen  Sprache,  §  532. 

II  Ibid. 


The  Semitic  Negative  27 

This  derivation  from  the  interrogative  is  adopted  in  Driver  and 
Brown's  new  edition  of  Gesenius'  Lexicon*  where,  however,  no 
explanation  is  attempted  for  the  "! . 

Before  offering  a  third  explanation,  it  is  in  order  to  point  out 
the  objections  to  these  two  views.  The  old  view  of  Gesenius  is 
open  to  suspicion  as  a  forced  attempt  to  explain  the  form  in 
accordance  with  an  assumption  that  all  forms  of  speech  neces- 
sarily have  their  origin  in  either  nominal  or  verbal  roots,  an 
assumption  sufficiently  answered  in  our  discussion  of  the  origin 
of  fctb .  The  attempt  to  see  in  the  three  letters  of  ffc<  the  radi- 
cals of  a  triliteral  root  can  at  best  carry  the  derivation  back  no 
tint  her  than  the  triliteral  stage  of  the  language,  which  is  a  late 
stage  arrived  at  only  by  a  process  such  as  is  still  going  on  in 
English  in  the  adoption  of  regular  preterites  for  irregular  verbs 
and  regular  plurals  for  irregular  nouns.  Again,  to  identify  the 
"  with  the  //  of  the  Indo-European  negative,  and  after  thus  making 
it  a  radical  and  tin-  strongest  one  in  the  triliteral  root,  to  allow  the 
dropping  of  it  on  the  analogy  of  the  dropping  of  the  v  from  dv-  in  a 
privative  of  the  Greek  is  quite  unwarranted;  first,  because  the  n  of 
the  Indo-European  lias  its  counterpart  in  /,  not  in  "TK  ;  secondly, 
because  the  v  of  av  in  Greek  and  Sanskrit  was  originally  not  a  true 
consonant  but  merely  a  nasal  vowel  like  final  n  in  French,  the  nasal 
quality  of  which  was  more  or  less  pronounced  according  as  it  was 
followed  by  a  vocal  or  consonantal  sound,  and  the  dropping  of 
which  was  done  in  accordance  with  well  defined  euphonic  laws; 
while  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  n  in  "PK  and  its  cognates  "^  of 
the  Hebrew,  "X  of  the  Phoenician.  ///<  and  en  in  the  Punic  of  Plau- 
tus,  and  the  A.  (  f)  and  the  XI  (?)  of  the  Ethiopic,  is  not  condi- 
tion. (1  by  euphonic  laws.  The  same  is  equally  true  when  the 
negative  has  jmssed,  as  Gesenius  would  have  us  believe,  into  the 
interrogative. -j-  The  impossibility,  on  psychological  grounds,  of 
the  transition  in  this  direction,  from  the  negative  to  the  inter- 
rogative, will  be  shown  later,  and  it  being  possible,  the  n  of  the 
interrogative  (c/.  Heb,  yW2 ,  Isa.  39:3  and  Arab.  ^j| )  must  be 
otherwise  accounted  for. 

Bottcher's  explanation  of  "j  as  a  nunnation^  is  unsatisfactory 

*  See  under  "pJJ  . 

tOesonius-Rodiger,  Hebrew  Grammar,  ed.  by  Conant,  pp.  272  sq. 

|  Bottchor,  Lehrbuch  der  hebrdischen  Sprache,  §  532. 


28  The  Semitic  Negative 

because  it  fails  to  explain  how  an  interrogative  could  receive  the 
nunnation,  while  the  admission  that  the  element  ay  is  the  inter- 
rogative connects  it  at  once  with  the  Arabic  J  and  hence  with 
^j|  in  which  the  \j  followed  by  a  vowel  certainly  cannot  be  the 
nunnation. 

What  then  is  the  n  in  "pX  ?  Accepting  as  the  basis  of  the 
form  the  interrogative  element  ay,  for  reasons  that  will  be  given 
later,  the  most  reasonable  view  as  to  the  n  is  that  it  is  neither 
the  n  of  negation*  nor  the  n  of  indefiniteness  but  the  demon- 
strative n  which  by  a  common  psychological  process  appears  both 
in  Indo-European  and  Semitic;  in  the  former  in  Sanskrit  »«,f 
Gr.  vvv,  Latin  nunc  and  English  now;  and  in  the  latter,  in  Heb. 
Tlltl  and  the  precative  particle  50 ,  and  in  the  Arabic  ^>| ,  and  Lls» 
and  possibly  in  the  energetic  form  of  the  verb.  This  particle  nu 
in  Sanskrit  is  appended  with  an  intensive  or  precative  force  to 
the  interrogative,^  as  in  ko-nu,  who  now?  who  pray?  It  has 
the  same  force  in  50  appended  to  the  verb  in  the  Hebrew  preca- 
tive sentence  and  in  doubtful  and  courteous  question. 

The  interrogative  in  Hebrew  can  easily  take  on  this  preca- 
tive particle,  yet  it  can  as  easily  omit  it  without  affecting  the 
form  of  the  question.  Whether  it  should  be  used  or  not  would 
depend  therefore  originally  upon  the  earnestness- of  the  speaker, 
but  later  might  become  so  stereotyped  as  to  lose  its  special  force. 
This  would  depend  upon  the  habit  of  mind  of  the  people  as  a 
whole,  so  that  it  might  prevail  more  among  the  Hebrews  than 
the  Phoenicians,  just  as  the  rhetorical  question  with  m  prevailed 
more  among  the  Arabs  than  among  the  Hebrews,  so  that  with  the 
former  it  became  stereotyped  as  a  negative  while  with  the  latter 
it  failed  to  do  so. 

Beginning  then  as  &WT5*  =  HiTT^  and  *j| ,  we  have  the 
vowel  of  the  n  preserved  in  both.  But  as  the  Hebrew  lost  its 
case  endings,  so  this  vowel  also,  being  unprotected,  was  lost,  the 
more  so  because  the  n  could,  though  with  difficulty,  fall  back 
upon  the  preceding  diphthong,  giving  the  form  "piK .  A  similar 
loss  of  the  final  vowel  in  colloquial  Arabic  reduces  the  Jo|  to 

*  For  the  contrary  view  see  Ewald,  Hebrew  Grammar,  tr.  London,  1836,  p.  288. 
t  Whitney,  Sanskrit  Grammar,  §504,  and  Lanman,  Sanskrit  Reader,  pp.  138  and  200. 
Cf.  also,  Lindsay,  The  Latin  Language,  p.  615. 

$  Lanman,  Sanskrit  Reader,  p.  138;  Whitney,  Sanskrit  Grammar,  §  504. 


The  Semitic  Negative  29 

Vjt ,  pronounced  dyn,  but  unspellable  in  Arabic  because  the 
vowel  system  has  not  been  sufficiently  developed  to  indicate  the 
sound  of  Hebrew  cere  to  which  this  exactly  corresponds.  This 
is  often  further  corrupted  in  the  modern  colloquial,  perhaps  by 
metathesis  of  yodh,  to  wdyn  and  this  sometimes  still  further  to 
fiiijn  (c/.  the  opposite  movement  of  p  in  Greek  as  it  weakens  from 
the  sound  of  /  or  v  to  w  and  finally  disappears).  But  since  the 
form  "j*K ,  in  which  the  yodh  still  has  something  of  consonantal 
force,  is  not  agreeable  to  the  Hebrew  ear,  the  yodh  must  find  a 
helping  vowel  after  the  manner  of  the  so-called  segholates,  or 
change  the  vowel  before  it  for  one  with  which  it  can  coalesce 
into  a  pure  vowel  sound.  This  leads  to  one  of  three  forms. 
Either  (a)  the  yodh  takes  as  a  helping  vowel  its  cognate  vowel 
/.  giving  the  form  yst  or  (6)  there  is  a  modification  of  the 
preceding  j>dfhdh  to  cere  with  which  the  yodh  more  easily  coales- 
ces, giving  the  Earm  7^  -  which  being  shorter  serves  for  the  con- 
struct state  and  exactly  corresponds  in  sound  to  the  unspellable 
colloquial  Arabic  dyn,  or  (c)  the  preceding  pdthdh  is  heightened 
to  <i<~u>n\',  and  the  yodh,  changed  to  waw,  takes  for  its  helping 
vowel  seghol,  giving  the  form  "pK. 

We  have  then  from  this  interrogative  stem  ay  and  the  precative 
Off  demonstrative  no  the  forms  ~o|  (colloquial  /Vj| ,  Jo.  ,  J>*i) 
MSTPIft,  WJIi  *"**  and  "pK  ,  of  which  the  last  three  have  passed 
into  the  negative  force.  To  these,  as  negatives  of  cognate  origin, 
we  may  add  the  Phoenician  yit  and  en  (Punic  dialect  in  Plautus)* 
and  probably  the  Kthiopie  fc*l,  A»»  (for  A'Jfr)  Mil  and  X1>fl?  ; 
and  from  the  same  stem  ay  without  the  na  we  have  the  Heb.  ^ 
(rare),  Talmudic  "X,  Phoenician  ^  (no  pointed  Phoenician  texts 
have  been  found  by  which  to  determine  the  voweling)  and  the 
first  part  of  the  compound  blTit ,  Ethiopic  K.  and  possibly  the 
Assyrian  a -a  and  6. 

Having  traced  the  development  of  the  form  of  "Ttf ,  it  needs 
but  a  few  words  to  trace  the  transition  of  the  idea  from  the 
interrogative  to  the  negative  force.  The  process  is  the  same  as 
in  the  case  of  Lo,  but  while  in  Lo  the  transition  is  made  through 
the  rhetorical  question  using  the  substantive  interrogative  what? 

•Schroedor,  Die  FhOnizUche  Sprache,  1809,  p.  211,  §  116,  b. 


30  The  Semitic  Negative 

in  "pH,  it  is  developed  from  the  qualitative  or  adverbial  where? 
and  not  only  through  the  rhetorical  question,  but  possibly  also 
through  the  question  for  information.  The  former,  however,  is 
certainly  the  more  common  and  gives  the  more  direct  transition. 
The  rhetorical  question,  Isa.  33:186,  "£©  JTK  bp;£  fWi  "ISO  PPB 
D'O^ftnTll!*  "Where  is  he  that  took  account,  where  is  he  that 
weighed  (the  tribute),  where  is  he  that  counted  the  towers?" 
conveys  in  strongest  terms  the  exultant  thought  of  the  speaker 
that  the  Assyrian  who  had  come  up  against  the  city  is  gone,  is 
destroyed,  in  short,  non  est. 

In  a  less  direct  way,  the  fcWiTK  that  asks  for  information 
may  become  Vttt,  whereness,  which  implies  the  absence  or  the 
nothingness  or  the  emptiness  and  gives  us  by  successive  steps  the 
"TS  of  nothingness  and  the  "j1fc<  of  vanity,  worthlessness  and  sin. 
This  transition  of  an  adverbial  interrogative  to  a  substantive 
force  is  seen  in  English  in  such  a  sentence  as,  I  know  neither 
the  how,  nor  why,  nor  when,  nor  where  of  it.  From  its  origin 
in  an  adverbial  interrogative  of  place,  it  comes  to  be  that  "pltf  is 
primarily  a  negative  of  existence  rather  than  of  action,  and  is 
therefore  found  most  commonly  and  properly  with  nominal  rather 
than  with  verbal  forms.  The  development  of  the  negative 
from  ay  has  been  carried  much  further  than  that  from  m,  and 
appears  in  several  languages,  while  that  from  Lo  is  confined 
with  few  exceptions  to  the  Arabic.  For  a  full  presentation 
of  their  development  in  Hebrew,  see  the  Table  E,  Syntactical 
Constructions. 

The  theory  that  makes  the  negatives  "TH  and  Lo  to  be  related 
to  the  interrogative  particles  in  the  reverse  order,*  that  is,  that 
the  interrogatives  were  derived  from  the  negative  particles,  which 
has  been  shown  to  be  etymologically  improbable,  can  be  shown 
to  be  psychologically  impossible.  This  has  been  done  briefly  by 
Bottcher  in  his  Lehrbuch  der  hebrdischen  Sprache,  §  532  sq. 
Taking  the  simple  sentence  X1H  "PK,  and  reading  the  "p£<  as  the 
rhetorical  interrogative  JCTPK,  "where,  pray,  is  he?"  the  impli- 
cation is  evident  that  he  is  not,  as  in  the  challenge  of  the  Rab- 
shakeh,  2  Kgs.,  18:34,  "Where  are  the  gods  of  Hamath  and 
Arpad  ?"    If  now  we  read  the  "Pfil  as  originally  negative,  he  is  not, 

*  Gesenius-ROdiger,  Hebrew  Grammar,  ed.  by  Conant,  pp.  272  sq. 


The  Semitic  Negative  31 

we  may  by  the  proper  inflection  indicate  a  question,  he  is  not?  = 
is  he  not?  hut  the  question  relates  only  to  the  existence  of  the 
person;  it  asks  nothing  as  to  the  where?  The  answer  can  only 
be  "yes "or  "no."  But  the  interrogative  iTK,  or,  as  in  2  Kgs. 
20:14,  182^  fWa,  "  whence  do  they  come?"  and  the  Arabic  /^jf, 
where?  can  never  be  answered  by  "yes"  or  "no."  Being  an 
adverbial  interrogative,  it  calls  for  an  adverbial  answer.  "Where 
is  he?"  asked  with  rhetorical  inflection  can  easily  and  naturally 
suggest,  he  is  not;  but  "not  is  he?"  can  never  by  inflection  or 
by  re-arrangement  of  the  order  of  the  words  suggest  the  thought, 
where  is  he? 

The  same  reasoning  applies  to  the  substantive  interrogative 
Lc.  The  sentence.  Jov  ^y-o  Lc ,  "What  did  Zeid  (ever)  strike," 
with  the  proper  rhetorical  emphasis  means,  "Zeid  has  not  (ever) 
struck  (anything) ;"  but  the  same  sentence  rendered  originally  as 
negative,  "Zeid  has  not  struck,"  can  never  by  change  of  inflec- 
tion or  of  order  of  words  call  for  a  substantive  answer,  which  it 
must  do  if  rendered,  "What  has  Zeid  struck?"  Examples  might 
be  given  to  show  that  this  holds  equally  good  whether  the  Lc  be 
subject  or  predicate  nominative  <>r  object  or  adverbial  accusative. 

V. 

THE  SEMITIC  CONCEPT  OF  NONENTITY. 

Prof.  Max  Muller.  in  his  Ledum  <»i  the  Science  of  Language, 

2d  series.  |>j>.  .'Ill  7,  is  at  some  pains  to  show  that  abstract 
nothingness  was  inconceivable  to  the  human  mind  until  the 
theologians  invented  it  for  use  in  their  discussions  on  escha- 
tology,  and  made  annihilation  their  bugbear  with  which  to 
frighten  men  into  being  good.  In  demonstration  of  this  he 
arrays  certain  facts  in  Indo-European  philology  to  show  that  the 
nearest  approach  that  language  could  make  to  expressing  non- 
entity was  by  taking  the  smallest  conceivable  concrete  thing  or 
actual  existence,  and  then  denying  that  object  or  existence. 
Hence  all  words  expressive  of  non-existence  in  the  Indo-European 
stock  are  necessarily  compounds.  Thus  in  English,  nothing  == 
no  thing  and  none  =  no  one;  in  French,  ne  .  .  .  rum  =  Latin  ne 
.  .  .  rem,  "  not  a  thing  "  and  ne  .  .  .  .   point  =  Latin  ne  .  .  .  . 


OF  THB 

jTVTTR  fVTTT 


32  The  Semitic  Negative 

punchnn,  "not  a  point;"  in  Italian,  niente  =  Latin  ne  ...  .  ens 
for  essens,  "not  being;"  in  Latin,  nihil,  from  which  annihilation, 
=  ne  filum,  "not  a  thread,"  by  change  of  /  to  h  frequently  seen 
in  Spanish  words  borrowed  from  the  Latin;  in  Greek,  ovhiv,  and 
in  Sanskrit,  asat  =  a  privative  and  sat  =  Latin  sens  or  ens, 
"being." 

The  position  seems  well  sustained  by  the  Indo-European  phi- 
lology, but  if  Professor  Miiller  had  looked  at  the  Hebrew,  he 
would  have  found  that  the  Semitic  mind,  whether  early  or  late, 
whether  in  the  clergy  or  the  laity,  grasped  the  idea  of  abstract 
nonentity  immediately  and  expressed  it  by  its  simplest  uncom- 
pounded  negative  particles.  Moreover,  in  Hebrew  the  terms  are 
not  used  eschatologically.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  simple 
negative  particles  fcO  and  blK  occur  but  rarely  as  substantives, 
but  this  is  because  &0  and  bi!<  are  primarily  negatives  of  action, 
not  of  being,  whereas  for  the  idea  of  nonentity  a  negative  of 
entity  is  wanted.  This  the  Hebrew  finds  in  its  "p$ ,  which, 
though  a  compound  indeed  as  an  interrogative,  is  as  a  negative 
to  be  considered  a  simple  form,  since  the  compounding  took  place 
previous  to  its  reaching  the  negative  stage.  The  Hebrew,  there- 
fore, has  expressions  which  for  brevity  and  directness  correspond, 
not  to  our  roundabout  nothingness,  no-thing -ness,  but  to  our  not- 
ness.  The  following  are  examples  of  the  simple  negative  so  used, 
Isa.  55:2: 

nnb  aiba  -p  team  rtsb 

v  v  ;         '  •■  v  ':    :    •  t  t 

"Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for  the  nothing  (or  notness)  of 
bread,  and  your  labor  for  nothing  for  satisfying."  Here  if  any 
should  prefer  to  take  the  D<";b  ^b  as  a  compound  like  *Q1  SO  = 
no-thing,  or  like  the  peculiar  expressions,  *UPT&3  and  {T-mVJO 
of  Hos.  1:6,  9;  we  have  yet  the  second  phrase  in  which  the  b 
before  fDDifl  cuts  it  off  from  compounding  with  Nib  and  leaves 
the  latter  to  stand  by  itself  as  a  noun  of  nothingness  in  the  abso- 
lute state.  Dan.  4:32,  JWSjnTfcS  »T18  "IKl  bsi ,  "All  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  reputed  as  nothing.'1  Job  24:25, 
nnb<2  bKb  Dizn  ^2hTjh  T2  "Who  will  make  me  out  a  liar  and  put 
my  words  to  naught?" 


The  Semitic  Negative  33 

Isa.  41:12,  fSO  ITT  "They  shall  be  as  naught:' 
Isa.  41:24,  J*B  Dna  \H  "Behold,  ye  are  of  nothing:' 
Amos   5:5,  "psb  iTTT  5»  Pl-Zll    "And   Bethel    shall  come  to 
nothingness." 

In  addition  to  this  use  of  the  simple  negative  particle  to 
express  nothingness,  the  Hebrew  employs  in  great  variety  verbal 
nouns  such  as  VIH ,  CEK ,  3Tifc< ,  blTi ,  p"H  and  Tbll  to  suggest 
the  same  idea,  and  also  uses  compounds  in  the  same  way  as  the 
Indo-European,  as  "Ql  fctb  and  H'-^bi  of  Job  26:7  =  no-thing, 
though  in  such  cases  more  often  the  fc<b  is  separated  from  the 
noun  by  the  verb  or  even  by  the  entire  remainder  of  the  sentence, 
as  in  the  very  common  constructions  bD  .  .  .  JO,  TZTN  .  .  .  5<b  and 

■en . . .  16 . 


34 


The  Semitic  Negative 


Table  D. — Occurrences  of  Negatives  in  the  Old  Testament. 


o 

55 

vr 

■5 
'A 

vl" 

vr 
55 

39 

j 
vr 

• 
vr 

1 

j 
55 

36 

j 

rA 

vr 
U 

j 

»r 
U 

» 

vr 
U 

j 

vr 
U 

a 

j 
u 

10 

a 

w 

'A 

2 

ii 
rA 

11 

17 

» 

"I 
vr 

-i 

ri 
'A 

4 

tJ 

1 

vr 
li 
rA 

» 
ii 

3 

a 

5C 

j 
u 

10 

Gen.  . . . 

212 

1 

8 

3 

10 

Ex 

244 

19 

22 

1 

5 

4 

1 

2 

8 

Lev .... 

282 

11 

21 

3 

1 

1 

3 

Num.  . . 

188 

14 

19 

7 

1 

1 

2 

3 

J 

2 

Deut.  . . 

408 

21 

1 

30 

4 

1 

1 

28 

1 

3 

5 

20 

Josh. . . . 

98 

20 

5 

1 

9 

1 

2 

3 

1 

9 

15 

Judg.  . . 

132 

16 

1 

27 

-2 

i 

1 

1 

5 

2 

2 

7 

1  Sam... 

198 

25 

1 

33 

2 

-6 

2 

5 

7 

1 

5 

2 

2 

8 

2 

2  Sam.. . 

130 

23 

1 

15 

-4(5) 

3 

2 

2 

6 

1 

6 

6 

lKgs... 

177 

13 

25 

-3 

3 

2 

5 

1 

7 

11 

2Kgs... 

178 

23 

1 

20 

3 

5 

1 

2 

n 

2 

1 

7 

1 

1 

15 

10 

432 

43 

1 

91 

24 

6 

5 

6 

7 

13 

1 

3 

4 

3 

22 

5 

1 

510 

1 

89 

89 

4 

25 

1 

4 

8 

1 

21 

1 

15 

2 

Ezek.... 

335 

14 

24 

2 

15 

1 

it 

Hos.  . . . 

67 

7 

15 

2 

4 

1 

1 

1 

Joel 

12 

4 

3 

Amos. . . 

72 

2 

5 

2 

2 

1 

1 

1 

2 

1 

Obad. . . 

4 

8 

1 

9 

5 

Mic 

29 

6 

6 

1 

1 

Nah.... 

9 

7 

-2 

. , 

Hab.  . . . 

21 

3 

Zeph. . . 

25 

2 

3 

2 

3 

1 

4 

Hag 

4 

1 

5 

1 

Zech.  .. 

51 

7 

4 

4 

1 

Mai  ... . 

19 

1 

6 

1 

1 

1 

Ps 

329 

122 

(5 

66 

30 

-2(6) 

1 

4 

1 

9 

1 

3 

3 

1 

2 

1 

Prov. . . . 

134 

89 

37 

10 

_o 

3 

2 

17 

2 

1 

Job 

290 

24 

29 

1 

18 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

3 

7 

Cant.. . . 

11 

2 

5 

2 

Ruth.  . . 

18 

8 

1 

3 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

Lam .  . . 

39 

5 

11 

1 

2 

Eccles.  . 

65 

21 

44 

1 

1 

3 

Esth . .  . 

28 

4 

10 

3 

Dan.  .  . . 

45 

69 

6 

9 

2 

1 

2 

Ezra  . . . 

15 

12 

2 

4 

1 

Neh.... 

61 

9 

11 

2 

2 

1  Chron. 

53 

7 

9 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

3 

2Chron. 

156 

20 

13 

25 
776 

3 

67 

-1 

1 

'A 

2 

— 

3 

i 

6 

11 

Total... 

5093 

82 

732 

76 

82 

17 

52 

S3 

1 

128 

15 

The  Semitic  Negative  35 

notes  on  table  of  occurrences. 

xb  •  The  enumeration  includes  all  cases  where  other  spellings,  as 
ib  (1  Sam.  2:20)  and  pj'b  (Deut.  3:11)  are  used  for  X'b,  all  compounds 
of  xb  as  xbll,  X>2  and  xbb  and  both  long  and  short  forms.  It 
includes  also  its  occurrences  in  the  asseverative  xb  EX »  though  its  neg- 
ative force  is  lost  in  the  rendering  "surely."     It  does  not  include  xb  =  la. 

bx  includes  also  the  two  occurrences  of  bx  (Isa.  37:10;*  Jer.  51:3) 
and  two  of  b?  for  bx  (2  Kgs.  23:18;  Ezek.  9:5). 

"PX  includes  yx  and  "pX,  but  no  case  of  "pX  or  ''X. 

b2  includes  all  cases  where  it  has  the  meaning  not,  lest  or  but  adver- 
sative, but  not  cases  where  it  is  merely  affirmatively  intensive  =  surely. 

"'blS  includes  its  use  in  the  compound  b^bs  >  the  number  of  such 
occurrences  being  indicated  by  a  figure  preceded  by  hyphen,  to  be  under- 
stood as  included  in  the  larger  figure  when  there  are  two.  It  includes 
also  the  one  occurrence  of  rPJ^bll  (Job  26: 7)  and  all  compounds  with 
prepositions. 

Tibs  includes  all  forms  of  this  in  composition  with  the  prepositions 
3  .  TQ,  etc.,  and  the  case  rendered  "only"  or  in  margin  of  R.  V.  "with- 
out me"  (Isa.  10:4). 

CEX  includes  the  occurrences  of  the  verb  £SX>  to  not  be,  the  con- 

••   T 

junction  "2  C5X  except  that,  the  use  with  pronominal  suffixes  as  ""CSX 
and  as  noun  of  mtfln'iujmss,  but  does  not  include  its  use  as  a  concrete 
noun  as  in  \"*X  "CEX  *nd#  of  the  earth,  and  D^CSX  extremities,  i.  e., 
hands  and  feet 

"EX  occurring  but  once  (Isa.  41:24)  is  probably  a  corruption  of  CSX  • 

-     T 

OX  includes  only  those  occurrences  where,  though  originally  a  con- 
ditional particle,  it  now  has  the  force  of  a  negative  after  formula  of 
asseveration  expressed  or  implied.  It  does  not,  however,  include  the  QX 
of  xb  DX  which,  though  of  the  same  origin  and  force  originally,  becomes 
in  connection  with  xb  equivalent  to  the  affirmative  "surely."  See  note 
on  xb- 

PI'S'  The  occurrence  of  fpj  iu  rhetorical  question  is  analogous  to 
the  use  of  Lo  in  Arabic,  but  occurring  far  less  frequently,  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have  become  sufficiently  common  and  stereotyped  to  have  lost  its 
original  interrogative  force.  In  two  cases,  however,  Cant.  8:4,  it  replaces 
in  similar  construction  the  DX'8  of  2:7  and  3:5  which  have  the  force 
of  negative  particles  in  adjuration.  This  seems  the  only  case  where  we 
can  fairly  render  TT2  as  a  negative  in  the  Hebrew. 

"S3  •  bsX  •  "3 .  DX  "3  •  pi  •  The  classification  of  these  particles 
as  negatives  or  adversatives  being  in  many  cases  a  matter  of  interpreta- 
tion and  opinion,  the  table  enumerates  only  those  cases  that  seem  least 

*  Pointed  with  pathah  in  tbo  Baer  and  Delitzscb  text. 


36  The  Semitic  Negative 

doubtful,  and  they  are  not  summarized.  Thus,  T£)  is  originally  parti- 
tive or  comparative  and  after  a  verb  implying  separation  must  be  rendered 
"from,"  as  in  the  sentence  "he  prevented  them  from  speaking."  But  in 
the  sentence,  Isa.5:6,  TttBPffij  »Tl£K  DVtl  b?  "I  will  command  the 
clouds  not  to  rain,"  the  privative  force  is  not  so  apparent  in  the  prin- 
cipal verb,  will  command,  and  the  particle  may  be  rendered  as  negative. 
So  also  in  the  case  of  the  other  particles,  the  exact  value  in  some  cases 
is  not  determined  and  the  enumeration  cannot  be  definite. 

Table  E. —  Syntactical  Constructions  of  the  Hebrew  Negative. 

Kb 

1.  With  finite  verb,  perf.,  Gen.  2:5,  DTlbK  tfST  TOSH  M& 

2.  "        "        "      imperf.  declarative,  Isa.  39:6,  -Q'H  1WP  K"b 

T     T  ♦•   T  • 

3.  "        "        "  "       strong  jussive,  Gen.  2:17,    S]3ft£  bjKfl  Kb 

4.  "        "        "  "       weak  jussive,  continuing  bK>  Lev.  10:6, 

Tiisn  Kb  tas^tmi  Ensn  bK  d^iotn 

;    •  •.•••:•  T  ;    •  -  V       »•        T 

5.  With  finite  verb,  in  asseveration  —  OK , 

Ezek.  14:18,  &&  &£?  ab  HIST  *3TK  OK?  "S^Ttl 

6.  With  noun,  Jer.  18:17,  DK^K  D^STfcbl  CT& 

7.  "         "      in  nominal  sentence,  Gen.  42:34,    QfiK  W^jftD  Kb  "3 

8.  "         "      negating  a  quality,  2  Chron.  13:9,  "that  which  is  a 

no-god,"  =  noun  in  construct,  DTl'bK  K"bb  TID  PITH 

:       i"  t  t   : 

9.  With  adjective,  Ex.  22:15,  STffllK  K'b  "HSK  PlbWQ 

t  t  •.■  -:         t  : 

10.  "  "         phrase,  Gen.  15:13,  Dnb  Kb  y^n 

11.  With  adverb,  Gen.  48:18,  "UK  -p-gb  .  .  ■  ~,CV  TDSt*l 

12.  "  "       phrase,  Ex.  3:19,  ripTH  T3  K'bl 

'tt  -:        t  :  : 

13.  With  noun  as  jussive  =  bK>  Prov.  27:2, 

SjTiafe  hafl  'nsa  *ps  Kbi  it  sjbbrv 

14.  Independent  =  nay!  Gen.  19:2 (kethibh),  -pba  ZfilTQ  "3  Kb  TOK^I 

15.  With  sentence,  Ezek.  18:29,  "pFP  J<b  W^TI  Kbn 

16.  After  preposition  21  with  (a)  noun  —  without,  Jer.  22:13, 

pn^-Kbn  irvn  n»  "in 

"      "     (Z>)  verb  imperf.,  Lam.  4:14, 

Drnonba  w  tor  Kbn 

"  "  "      "     (c)  verb,  infin.,  Num.  35:23, 

niKn  Kbn  as  rw  tick  pk  bba 


The  Semitic  Negative  37 

After  preposition  21  with  (d)  prep,  and  noun,  Isa.  55:2,  TV2XDb  fcObm 
"      "     (e)adv.  phrase,  2  Chron.  30:18,"  ' 

avoD  ribs  ncsrrna  tim 

t  -  :  -  ■.•  -  v  :  t 

17.  After  preposition  5  with  (a)  finite  perf.,  Isa.  65:1, 

■Offlja  a'bb  "f«*?tia 

"      u     (6)  adj.  phrase,  Job  39: 16, 

fib-abb  TO  T1?!?5? 

18.  After  preposition  blP  with  fiuite  perf.,  Ps.  119:136, 

^rnin  rtash/b  by  *wj  *nr  d^-j  ■aba 

19.  After  preposition  3  with  finite  perf.,  Obad.  16,  VH  Xib5  *Pm 

:  t  t    ; 

20.  After  preposition  ^ob==,SBi  Ps.  119:80,  'JJ'Qa  &<b  "J^b 

21.  Followed  by  b  with  infin.  =  o6k  ton,  Amos  6:10, 

nftr  diss  rwrh  xb  ■$  en 

^  0*  t      :         «  :  •  :  -  :  T 

22.  With  "jr  =  Arab.  LrJ,  Job  9:33,  >  1  'jffaj  WS  '^  Nb 

23.  "     U&  =  assuredly,  Gen.  24:38,  -Af)  ^tfTT:rbK  tfb"D8 

" T 

24.  "     "H  independent  =  Germ,  niehi  wakrt  Judg.  14:15, 

abn  ttb  Dn^p  «w*rtn 

"1  t  t':  ••     :t:    - 

1.  Deprecation,  finite  imperf.,  Gen.  13:8, 

ww  ■«  rcma  tm  nrb» 

!•••••  •     ••  t      .  :         .    :  T 

2.  "  nominal  sentence,  2  Sam.  1:21, 

orb?  ids  bai  bts-b^  yhban  m 

•■•    ••  -:        t    t         -  :        -         -     -       :  .  -       ..  T 

3.  Nominal  sentence  declarative,  Prov.  12:28, 

wnri*  ww  sfiTi  D^n  npTis  irita 

4.  As  substantive,  Job  24:25,  Tib"-  bsb  OTCI  ",w2■,T5',  "TO 

•   t.  -;  ••  t  ;        ....;-         . 

6.  Independent  =  nay!  Gen.  19:18,  ^18  tfrbtf  DHb«  taib  ^J&OI 

t        :         t  -  •••••-: 

1.  Construct  state  with  noun,  Gen.  37:29,  THSl  TCT  "Ftf 

2.  "  "        «     pronoun,  Gen.  28:17,  BTfcg  TO  DM  "3  HT  "ftf 

3.  «  "        «     suffix,  Gen.  37:30,  ^r«  Tb^n 

4.  "  «        "         "      before  participle  =  copula,  Gen.  20:7, 

5.  -  «        "     adj.  phrase,  Ex.  8:6,  OTA*  STfcTO  T* 


38  The  Semitic  Negative 

6.  Construct  state  with  noun  and  governed  by  t}3,  Isa.6:ll,  Q*^  ViX/2 

I     •  T   T  I      ••    •• 

7.  "  "        "     inf.  and  governed  by  TQ,  Mai.  2:13, 

8.  "  "        "     adj.  phrase  and  governed  by  TJJ,  Jer.  10:6, 

9.  "  "        "     noun  and  governed  by  3,,  Ezek.  38:11, 

rtBti  -pan 

10.  "  "        "         "       "  "         "    b,  Isa.  40:29, " 

raT  na»  tnia  7*6*1 

11.  *  "        "     participle  and  governed  by  b>  Neh.  8:10, 

ib  rtoa  rnb  nta  vibizn 

J       t     I    «  :  t  :   •    : 

12.  "  "        "     noun  and  strengthened  by  li3J,  Isa.  23:10, 

nis?  rra  ^a 

13.  "  "        "     noun  separated  by  *f&,  Jer.  49:7, 

■fffta  nasn  ?fr  -pan 

14.  "  "        "     infin.  with  ^=ote  Am,  Eceles.  3:14, 

'  rub  r«  sss^  croinb  r«  rto 

-:•!••  v    •  I    •  :        I    ••  t  r 

15.  "  "        "     adv.  phrase  or  obj.  acc.(?),  Hag.  2:17, 

*ba  ww  f«i 

16.  "  "        "     tZT  pleonastic,  Ps.  135:17,   BTB£.h*HW*  T!^ 

17.  "  "        "     noun  and  after  ^bS  pleonastic,  2  Kgs.  1:3, 

18.  "  "      between  partic.  noun  and  its  object,  Gen.  40:8, 

infc  f&  nns^i  ttobri  nibn 

19.  "  "  "        noun  and  adv.  phrase  =  copula,  Gen.  19:31, 

■pasi  -pa  tc"«i 

20.  Absolute  state  between  noun  and  adv.  phrase,  2  Kgs.  19:3, 

mbb  f»  r&) 

21.  "  "     after  noun,  Lev.  26:37,  *pK  t|T11 

22.  "  "     independent,  1  Kgs.  18:10,  -j^  TO^I 

23.  u  u     after  preposition  =  substantive; — with  b>  Isa.  40:23, 

-pab  mfh  -jrvfon 

24.  "  «        "  "  =  substantive;  — with  3,  Hag.  2:3, 

em  £»  rto  »ibn 

25.  "  "        "  "  =  adv.  phrase  =  almost,  Ps.  73:2, 

rasp  £*fi  -ban 


The  Semitic  Negative  39 

26.  Absolute  state  after  preposition  =  subst.;— with  "!}J,  Isa.  41:24, 

?bke  nbbhsu  raw  ona  -,n 

-    T    "  V   :   T  IT  I  .  -    ..  V    -  I  •• 

27.  "  "        "  "  and  followed  by  adj.  phrase,  Jer.  30: 7 

(but  cf.  Jer.  10:6,  note  8  above),  Vita  -pK?J  ^HH  DTH  bil3 

28.  Absolute  state  with  verb  perfect  =  fcfcb ,  Job  35:15, 

mz  rr-«bi  tea  nps>  n<  ■$  pjfpi 

—         -t  :  -       •-  t      !•  -       •  t-: 

1.  With  noun,  1  Sam.  4:21,  TOD  *K 

T  • 

2.  "     adjective,  Job  22:30,  ^pD""!* 

1.  With  noun  =  mthout,  Isa.  28:8,  Uip'2  "bs, 

2.  "     adjective,  2  Sam.  1:21,  rQTBSi  TTXDfC  nbn  b*ttW3  ",312 

I  V     T     -         -  •     T  •:  T  "••   T 

3.  "     finite  verb  perfect,  Gen.  31:20,   KTJ  Tfh  *2  ib  TSTI  ^b^l  b? 

4.  "        "        "     imperf.,  Hos.  8:7,  rTBjgTto;  *bn 

5.  In  composition  with  noun,  Judg.  19:22,  by*bni 
"  u     pronoun,  Job  26:7,  H'J^ba  by 
"  "     preposition,  with  S»  Deut.  4:42, 

u     bi  Isa.  5:14, 

prnbnb  rrs  mflB 

i  .    ;  .      t      •  t-:  it 

"     -p  with  noun,  Jer.  2:15, 
"      «      "     infin.,  Deut.  9:28,'  ' 

■p«n  b»  aranb  rrtrr  nbr  "tea 

"  "     fjp  with  adj.  phrase,  Job  18:15, 

ib  "bn-j  ibnxa  rMn 

.  :    •  t:  rr  :      I        :    . 

"  "     72  and  with  "."K  pleonastic,  Ex.  14:11, 

aroma  D-ap-yw  ^son 

•  -  :     •    :  •  t':      '    ••        •    :    •    -: 

13.  As  substantive  =  nothingness,  "the  pit,"  Isa.  38:17, 

■4a  nrraa  "ipsa  npran  nnsn 
"nbs 

1.  With  noun  =  except  Gen.  21:26,  QVH  Tlbn  TTOT  «"b 

2.  "     adj.  phrase  =  onty,  Num.  11:6,  sirr?  TBrrb»  Tltol 


6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 


40  The  Semitic  Negative 

3.  With  pronom.  suffix,  1  Sam.  2:2,  SPfibSl  -pj$  ^ 

4.  "  "  "       hidden,  Hos.  13:4,  "And  deliverer  there  is  none 

except  me,"  ^F)bn  "fK  TX&VSH 

5.  "     Q^  =  except,  Gen.  47: 18,  ttrM3"D«  T&3  "3TO  "Dsb  IIHfe  Kb 

6.  "     nominal  sentence,  Gen.  43:5,  DSntf  DSTfiK  *V)bjl  "OS  Wfr^b 

7.  Independent  =  nay!  Dan.  11:18(?),  ib  S^F  insift  "nbS 

t  t     :  •-•  •    :• 

8.  With  preposition  "$  before  finite  verb  perf.,  Num.  21:35, 

T"j$  ib  "mtfri  Tfcsrr?  • • • in&  w 

9.  "  "  b  before  infin.,  Gen.  4:15, 

:  t  -  •    ;   •    : 

10.  "  "  "        "      finite  perf.,  Jer.  23:14, 

11.  "  "  "        "        "      imperf.,  Ex.  20:20,  WtthTl  TO3? 

12.  "  "  "        "      band  infin.,  2  Kgs.  23:10, 

'©83  •  •  •  i:n-na  t^»  TQ?0b  ^ribnb 

13.  «  "  -p     "      infin.,  Num.  14:16  (c/.  under  ^,  No.  10, 

Deut.  9:28),  BftYhji  &?&  stfrT  nbir  t&so  ' 
bs 

1.  With  adjective,  Prov.  24:23,  nirrba  BBTZJESl 

2.  "  "  phrase,  Prov.  23:7,  rr^3?-bn  isb 

3.  "  finite  perfect,  Isa.  26:10,  pTI  Tab  bs  3fah  "jlT 

4.  "  "     imperf.,  Isa.  26:10,  pi1»3  Wr  b^ 

5.  "  infinitive  =  "(S,  Ps.  32:9,  ^b«  n°lp  bn 

1.  =  except,  Gen.  14:24,  Dh"U?2n  ^lbS«  ^TEtf  p"l  "HSbSl 

•  t  ;  -  :  it  v  -:     '     -        -  t  :     • 

2.  =not  by  me,  Gen.  41:16,  JthB  tfftiriTlK  >tH£  Btf^K  JJ&n 

3.  With  preposition  ','2  — besides,  Josh.  22:19, 

frtfta  nirr  n^T?  'HJtea  rata  osb  bbrtoa 

1.  With  finite  perf.,  Gen.  21:15,  *&&  nVS  D^t?  WST'FW 

2.  "        "     imperf.,  Ex.  9:30,  fiTT  ^DS/J  t»TR  CTitt  "3  WT 


The  Semitic  Negative  41 

3.  With  finite  imperf.  for  DfilttSli  Ex.  12:34, 

rem  wta  ipssrna  d?n  sw 

(    t   :  :■  v       *    ••  :  v         t  t  t  •- 

4.  "     preposition  ^  and  followed  by  perfect,  Ps.  90:2, 

5.  "  u  "    "  "  "    imperf.,  Gen.  27: 4, 

6.  "  "  "   before  noun,  Isa.  17:14,  l^K  '"ipi  DIpS 

7.  "  "  "       «      infin.,  Zeph.  2:2, 

or  ^n?  lrto  pn  rnb  tma 

8.  «  "  »p  before  infin.,  Hag.  2:15, 

9.  «  "  a  and  fc*b  pleonastic,  Zeph.  2:2, 

■jinn  art*  Kin;  rib  Dips 
CM 

1.  With  noun  =  only,  Num.  22:35, 

"enn  infc  *pb«  Wipizkji  ^jstth*  cssn 

2.  ■     adjective  =  substantive,  2  Kgs.  14:26,  ^IJ  CEK1  1*l£y  CSH 

T  V  V    :  T 

3.  "     adverbial  phrase,  Isa.  54:15,  TfiKtt  CSX  W  "ffei 

•  ••  V   V  T 

4.  "     pronominal  sufiix,  Isa.  47:10,  T\y  TB&O  "^N 

5.  "     *3  as  conjunction  =  but,  except  that,  Deut.  15:4, 

m*  «b  ^  csx 

6.  "     preposition  "j/J- substantive,  Isa.  40:17,  ?inbl  CSX73 

7.  "  "  21  =  substantive,  Prov.  14:28, 

pn  rwca  oiab  csxn^i 

8.  As  verb,  Gen.  47:15,  rC2  CS5<  h3 

I  V    T  ••    T  • 

1 

1.  With  perfect,  clause  of  possibility,  2  Kgs.  2:16, 

2.  "     imperf.,  of  caution,  Gen.  3:22,  VT  nbtD"1  "tB 

3.  u  "        of  adjuration  =  D»,  Judg.  15:12, 

ona  ^a  pssn  -j3  hb  Wttjn 

4.  "  "        of  mild  prohibition  =b^,  Jer.  51:46,   ttfflb  TP  TjW 

5.  "     omission  of  verb,  Prov.  25:8, 

Btwrwa  nuggrnu  is  *ra  nib  asn  ba 

t      •-:!-;  v  -:  i-  I  v         .•   -  .  t         .... 


42  The  Semitic  Negative 

1.  With  noun  =  onfy,  Deut.  4:12,  bip  n)nblT  ETtfn  DW*  rTffiBtfl 

2.  "     pronominal  suffix  =  except,  1  Sam.  21 :  10, 

rtra  nnb^iT  mna  r*  *3 

V  -  T   T  V  V  -  1      .. 

1.  In  asseveration  with  imperfect,  Gen.  42:15,  HtE  ^tQPTQK  FI3H3  tl 

2.  "  "  "    nouns,  Ezek.  14:16, 

»fehsr  rfttrqrj  cra-E»  nrtnj  **»  dm  "ok  -n 

3.  u  "  after  fibril,  imperf. /job  27: 5, 

v  :   v     »       •  :   -  .       ■         t    •   t 

4.  "  adjuration,  imperf.,  Cant.  2:7, 

rDnarrntf  .    .  twi  d»  . . .  Mna  "raaizjn 

t  -:  i-  t         v  •   t  •  v  :   v         •  :   -   :    . 

T 

In  adjuration,  imperf.,  Cant.  8:4  (c/.  under  Qfc$,  No.  4  above), 

mnarrna  .  •  •  wn-rra  •  •  •  osna  waion 


t  -:  i-  t 


VITA. 

I,  Dean  A.  Walker,  was  born  at  Diarbekr,  Turkey,  on  February  3, 
1860.  I  studied  in  the  public  schools  of  Newton,  Mass.,  from  1867-1880, 
at  Yale  University  from  1880-84.  After  this,  I  was  for  the  period  of  one 
year,  Instructor  in  the  Hopkins  Grammar  School  at  New  Haven;  Pro- 
fessor of  Languages  in  Colorado  College,  1885-86;  and  entered  the  Yale 
Divinity  School  in  1886,  where  I  remained  until  1889.  From  1889-92  I 
was  Asssistant  and  Principal  of  the  Preparatory  Department  of  the 
Syrian  Protestant  College  at  Beirut,  Syria.  Shortly  after  my  return  to 
America  in  1893,  I  entered  The  University  of  Chicago  as  a  Graduate 
Student  in  the  Semitic  Department  and  acted  as  a  University  Extension 
Lecturer.  During  the  Summer  of  1894  and  1895  I  was  Lecturer  for  the 
American  Institute  of  Sacred  Literature  at  the  Chautauqua  Assemblies. 
Since  Autumn  of  1895,  I  am  Professor  of  English  Bible  and  Instructor 
in  Social  Science  at  Wells  College,  Aurora,  N.  Y.  To  my  former  teachers 
at  Yale  University  and  in  The  University  of  Chicago,  who  have  always 
assisted  me  with  kind  advice  and  assistance,  I  herewith  express  my 
gratrful  thanks. 


Photomount 

Pamphlet 

Binder 

Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc 

Makers 

Stockton,  Calif. 

PAT.  JAN.  21.  1908 


S0C279 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


